Biennial Reports
of the Chief of Staff of the
United States ArmyJuly 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945
to the
Secretary of War

Dear Mr. Secretary:

For the first time since assuming this office six years
ago, it is possible for me to report that the security of
the United States of America is entirely in our own
hands. Since my last formal report to you on the state
of the Army, our forces in Europe, air and ground,
have contributed mightily to the complete destruction
of the Axis enemy. In the Pacific, Japan has been
compelled to sue for an end to the war which she
treacherously started. For two years the victorious
advance of the United States sea, air and land forces,
together with those of our allies was virtually
unchecked. They controlled the skies and the seas
and no army could successfully oppose them. Behind
these forces was the output of American farms and
factories, exceeding any similar effort of man, so that
the people everywhere with whom we were joined
in the fight for decency and justice were able to reinforce
force their efforts through the aid of American ships,
munitions and supplies.

Never was the strength of the American democracy
so evident nor has it ever been so clearly within out
power to give definite guidance for our course into
the future of the human race. And never, it seems to
me, has it been so imperative that we give thorough
and practical consideration to the development of a
means to provide a reasonable guarantee for future
war as well as security for that freedom we recently
left to the hazard of mere hope or chance.

The Nation is just emerging from one of its gravest
crises. This generation of Americans can still remember
the black days of 1942 when the Japanese conquered
all of Malaysia, occupied Burma, and threatened
India while the German armies approached the
Volga and the Suez. In those hours Germany and Japan
came so close to complete domination of the world
that we do not yet realize how thin the thread of
Allied survival had been stretched.

In good conscience this Nation can take little credit
for its part in staving off disaster in those critical days.
It is certain that the refusal of the British and Russian
peoples to accept what appeared to be inevitable
defeat was the great factor in the salvage of our civilization.
Of almost equal importance was the failure of
the enemy to make the most of the situation. In order
to establish for the historical record where and how
germany and Japan failed I asked General Eisenhower
to have his intelligence officers promptly interrogate
the ranking members of the German High Command
[Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW]
who are now our prisoners of war. The results of
these interviews are of remarkable interest. They give
a picture of dissension among the enemy nations and
lack of long-range planning that may well have been
decisive factors of this world struggle at its most critical moments.

As evaluated by the War Department General Staff,
the interrogations of the captured German commanders
disclose the following:

The available evidence shows that Hitler's original intent was to
create, by absorption of Germanic peoples in the areas contiguous
to Germany and by the strengthening of her new frontiers, a greater
Reich which would dominate Europe. To this end Hitler pursued a
policy of opportunism which achieved the occupation of the
Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia without military opposition.

No evidence has yet been found that the German High
Command had any over-all strategic plan. Although the High
Command approved Hitler's policies in principle, his impetuous
strategy outran German military capabilities and ultimately led to
Germany's defeat. The history of the German High Command
from 1938 on is one of constant conflict of personalities in which
military judgment was increasingly subordinated to Hitler's personal
dictates. The first clash occurred in 1938 and resulted in the
removal of von Blomberg, von Fritsch, and Beck and of the last
effective conservative influence on German foreign policy.

The campaigns in Poland, Norway, France, and the Low
Countries developed serious diversions between Hitler and the
General Staff as to the details of execution of strategic plans. In
each case the General Staff favored the orthodox offensive, Hitler
an unorthodox attack with objectives deep in enemy territory. In
each case Hitler's views prevailed and the astounding success of
each succeeding campaign raised Hitler's military prestige to the
point where his opinions were no longer challenged. His military
self-confidence became unassailable after the victory in France,
and he began to disparage substantially the ideas of his generals
even in the presence of junior officers. Thus no General Staff
objection was expressed when Hitler made the fatal decision to
invade Soviet Russia.

When Italy entered the war Mussolini's strategic aims contemplated
the expansion of his empire under the cloak of German military
success. Field Marshal Keitel reveals that Italy's declaration of
war was contrary to her agreement with Germany. Both Keitel and
Jodl agree that it was undesired. From the very beginning Italy was
a burden on the German war potential. Dependent upon Germany
and German-occupied territories for oil and coal, Italy was a constant
source of economic attrition. Mussolini's unilateral action in
attacking Greece and Egypt forced the Germans into the Balkan
and African campaigns, resulting in over-extension of the German
armies which subsequently became one of the principal factors in
Germany's defeat.

Nor is there evidence of close strategic coordination between
Germany and Japan. The German General Staff recognized that
Japan was bound by the neutrality pact with Russia but hoped that
the Japanese would tie down strong British and American land,
sea, and air forces in the Far East.

In the absence of any evidence so far to the contrary, it is
believed that Japan also acted unilaterally and not in accordance
with a unified strategic plan.

--107--

Here were three criminal nations eager for loot and
seeking greedily to advance their own self-interest by
war, yet unable to agree on a strategic over-all plan for
accomplishing a common objective.

The steps in the German defeat, as described by
captured members of the High Command, were:

1. Failure to invade England. Hitler's first military
set-back occurred when, after the collapse of France,
England did not capitulate. According to Colonel
General Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff of the
German High Command, the campaign in France had
been undertaken because it was estimated that with
the fall of France, England would not continue to
fight. The unexpectedly swift victory over France and
Great Britain's continuation of the war found the
General Staff unprepared for an invasion of England.
Although the armistice with France was concluded on
22 June 1940, no orders to prepare for the invasion of
Britain were issued prior to 2 July. Field Marshal
Kesselring stated that he urged the invasion since it
generally was believed in Germany that England was
in a critical condition. Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of
Staff of German Armed Force [Wehrmacht], however, stated that
the risk was thought to be the existence of the British
fleet. He said the army [das Heer] was ready but the air force [Luftwaffe]
was limited by weather, the navy [Kriegsmarine] very dubious.
Meanwhile, in the air blitz over England the German
Air Force had suffered irreparable losses from which
its bombardment arm never recovered.

2. The Campaign of 1941 in the Soviet Union. In
the Autumn of 1941 after the battle of Vysma, the
Germans stood exhausted by apparently victorious
before Moscow. According to Jodl, the General Staff of
the armed forces considered that one last energetic
push would be sufficient to finish the Soviets. The
German High Command had neither envisioned nor
planned for a winter campaign. A sudden change in
the weather brought disaster. The Red Army defense,
a terrific snow storm, and extremely unseasonable
cold in the Christmas week of 1941 precipitated the
strategic defeat of the German armed forces.
Impatient of all restraint, Hitler publicly announced
that he had more faith in his own intuition than in the
judgment of his military advisors. He relived the
commander in chief of the army, General von
Brauschitsch. It was the turning point of the war.

3. Stalingrad. Even after the reverse before
Moscow in 1941, Germany might have avoided
defeat had it not been for the campaign in 1942
which culminated in the disaster at Stalingrad.
Disregarding the military lessons of history, Hitler,
instead of attacking the Soviet armies massed in the
north, personally planned and directed a campaign
of which the immediate objectives were to deprive
the Soviet Union of her vital industries and raw materials
by cutting the Volga at Stalingrad and seizing the
Caucasian oil fields. Beyond these concrete objectives
was evidently the Napoleonic dream of a conquest
of the Middle East and India by a gigantic double
envelopment with one pincer descending from
the Caucasus through Tiflis and the other from
North Africa across Egypt, Palestine, and the Arabian
desert. The campaign collapsed before Stalingrad
with the magnificent Russian defense of that city and
in the northern foothills of the Caucasus, where a
break-down of German transport to the front left the
German armor stalled for 3 weeks for lack of fuel in
the critical summer months of 1942. Field Marshal
Keitel in reviewing this campaign remarks, that
Germany failed completely to estimate properly the
reserve of Russian industrial and productive power
east of the Urals. The statement of both Keitel and
Jodl is that neither was in favor of the Stalingrad campaign,
but that the recommendation of the High
Command were overruled by Adolf Hitler.

4. Invasion of North Africa. Allied landings in
North Africa came as surprise to the German High
Command. Field Marshal Kesselring, who, at the time,
was commanding all German forces in the
Mediterranean except Rommel's desert task force,
states that his headquarters did expect a landing and
had requested reinforcement by a division. However,
Kesselring's fears were not heeded by Hitler and
Goering. Allied security and deception measures for
the landing operations were found to have been highly
effective. Only when the Allied fleets and convoys
were streaming through the Straits of Gibraltar did the
Germans realize that something very special was
under way, and even then false conclusions were
drawn: either that the Allies intended to land in rear of
Rommel in the Middle East, or that these were British
reinforcements en route to the Far East, or supplies for
starving Malta. Since no advance preparations had
been made by the Germans to repel such an Allied
invasion of North Africa, all subsequent efforts to
counter the Allies suffered from hasty improvisation.
Defense continued, however, because, as Field
Marshal Keitel now states, since evacuation was
impossible, the Germans had only the choice of resisting
or surrendering.

5. The Invasion of France. All German headquarters
expected the Allied invasion of France. According
to Colonel General Jodl, both the general direction
and the strength of the initial assault in Normandy
were correctly estimated; but Field Marshal Keitel
states that the Germans were not sure exactly where
the Allies would strike and considered Brittany as
more probable because of the three major U-boat
bases located in that region. Both agree that the belief
of the German High Command that a second assault
would be launched, probably by an Army under
General Patton, held large German forces in the Pas de
Calais area. Both Keitel and Jodl believed that the invasion
could be repulsed or at worst contained, and

--108--

both named the Allied air arm as the decisive factor in
the German failure.

Prior to the invasion, important divergencies of
opinion developed between Field Marshal von
Rundstedt, Commander in Chief West, and Rommel,
commander of the threatened Army Group. Rundstedt
desired to hold his armored forces in a group around
Paris and in Eastern France; Rommel to push them forward
to positions in readiness close to the coast. The
Rommel view prevailed. Von Rundstedt was subsequently
relieved by Colonel General Von Kluge.

Soon after the Allied capture of Cherbourg, dissension
again broke out in the High Command. Von
Kluge and Rommel wished to evacuate all
Southwestern France, blocking or destroying its
usable ports. They believed that a continuation of the
fight in Normandy could only end with the destruction
of their Western Armies and that they should
withdraw before disintegration began> Von Kluge recommended
defense on the general line: lower
Seine-Paris-Fontainbleau-Massif Central. Hitler
refused to accept this recommendation, relieved
Kluge from command, and reappointed von
Rundstedt as Commander in Chief West. Under direct
instructions, Rundstedt continued the battle of
Normandy to its final denouement. Hitler himself
ordered the Avranches-Mortain counterattack and was
much surprised when it completely failed. Keitel
expresses further surprise at the audacious exploitation
of the American break-through at Avranches during
this counterattack, and particularly of the thrust
towards Brest.

6. The Ardennes Counterattack. The German offensive
in December 1944 was Hitler's personal conception.
According to Jodl, the objective of the attack was
Antwerp. It was hoped that overcast weather would
neutralize Allied air superiority, and that an exceptionally
rapid initial break-through could be achieved.
Other German officers believe that this operation was
reckless in the extreme, in that it irreparably damaged
the comparatively fresh armored divisions of the Sixth
Panzer Army, the principal element of Germany's
strategic reserve, at a moment when every available
reserve was needed to repulse the expected Soviet
attack in the East.

7. The Crossing of the Rhine. Even after the failure of
the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes, the
Germans believed that the Rhine line could be held. The
loss of the Remagen bridge, however, exploded this
hope. The entire Rhine defensive line had to be weakened
in the attempt to contain the bridgehead, and the
disorderly German retreat in the Saar and Palatinate rendered
easy the subsequent drive eastward of the Allied
Armies towards Hamburg, Leipzig, and Munich.

Not only were the European partners of the Axis
unable to coordinate their plans and resources and
agree within their own nations how best to proceed,
but the eastern partner, Japan, was working in even
greater discord. The Axis, as a matter of fact, existed
on paper only. Eager to capitalize on the preoccupation
of the western powers in Europe, Japan was so
greedy for her own immediate conquests that she laid
her strategy, not to help Germany defeat Russia and
Great Britain, but to accumulate her own profit. Had
the way been open Germany and Japan would have
undoubtedly joined their armies in Central Asia, but to
Japan this objective was secondary to looting the Far
East while there was no real force to stop her. The War
Department General Staff's analysis of Japanese objectives follows:

The Japanese, for many years, bolstered by a fanatical belief in
divine guidance and their own spiritual and military supremacy,
had planned the domination of the Far East and eventually the
world. Japan in her inland empire was not self-sufficient. She
required broader land areas and access to il, rubber, and other
raw materials if she were to become a major industrial world
power. This
principle of expansion
was outlined in the "Tanaka
Memorial" purportedly a secret memorandum prepared for
Hirohito by the Jap Premier in 1927. Authentic or not, it provided
the pattern which Japan has followed, culminating in the great
Pacific conflict.

Strategically, Japan was well poised in 1941 to carry out her
aims in Asia. All the major world powers who normally maintained
the status quo in Asia were absorbed in the war in Europe.
France had been overrun and eliminated. England was threatened
by German invasion. The U.S.S.R. was attempting to repel a
German invasion of her Western front reaching to the gates of the
capital. The United States had become the Arsenal of Democracy,
with major efforts directed toward the support and preservation
of our European Allies.

The Tripartite Pact
had been signed, giving Japan a free hand in
Asia. She had a large and relatively well-equipped army and a moderately
good air force well trained by actual combat in China. She
had obtained by forced agreement a staging area in French Indo-China.
She had a fairly large navy especially strong in the transport
craft available. She had accumulated by great national economy a
good stockpile of strategic matériels at home for the initial effort
and with each successive conquest she obtained new and important
areas from which other supplies of materials could be drawn,
such as oil, rubber, and metal. The Japanese mistakenly believed
in the hearty cooperation of "liberated" peoples of the so-called
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with their huge labor
pools. Japan considered herself ready to strike.

Japan's objective was the conquest, consolidation, and eventual
domination of the whole Far East. She intended to make her
conquest in a rapid surprise drive which would overpower all
resistance, to form an iron ring of outer defenses against which
the spiritually inferior, pacifistic combination of opponents could
beat themselves into weariness, while she consolidated her gains
at leisure.

The best estimate of Japan's plan for the accomplishment
of her objectives appears to be the following:

Neutralize or destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet by an
attack on Pearl Harbor.

Drive rapidly south overcoming the Philippines
and the Southwest and South Pacific Islands in order to
cut sea routes of supply or attack from the East and
gain the vast natural resources of the East Indies.

Cut China's supply line from the west by an invasion
of Burma.

--109--

Form a flank by the seizure of the naval base of
Singapore and the islands of Sumatra and Java.

Isolate or possibly invade Australia.

Invade the Hawaiian Islands via Midway.

Invade the Aleutian Islands to form a northern
flank, dependent on initial successes and retained momentum.

Bring the American Northwest under aerial bombardment,
raid our West Coast aviation industries, and
then seize critical areas.

Stimulate unrest to eventual revolution in India.

The Japanese strategic plan initially failed when she
missed the opportunity of landing troops on Hawaii,
capturing Oahu and the important bases there, and
denying us a necessary focal point from which to
launch operations in the Western Pacific.

There can be no doubt that the greed and the mistakes
of the war-making nations as well as the heroic
stands of the British and Soviet peoples saved the
United States a war on her own soil. The crisis had
come and passed at Stalingrad and El Alamein before
this Nation was able to gather sufficient resources to
participate in the fight in a determining manner. Had
the U.S.S.R. and the British Army of the Nile been
defeated in 1942, as they well might if the Germans,
Japanese, and Italians had better coordinated their
plans and resources and successive operations, we
should have stood today in the western hemisphere
confronted by enemies who controlled a greater part
of the world.

Our close approach to that terrifying situation
should have a sobering influence on Americans for
generations to come. Yet, this is only a prelude of
what can be expected so long as there are nations on
earth capable of waging total war.

On 6 August the entire world learned from
President Truman's announcement that man had
entered into a new era--that atomic power had been harnessed.

This discovery of American scientists can be man's
greatest benefit. And it can destroy him. It is against
the latter terrible possibility that this nation must prepare
or perish. Atomic power will affect the peaceful
life of every individual on earth. And it will at the
same time affect every instrument and technique of
destruction. But the atomic bomb is not along among
the scientific advances that make the possibilities of
the future so terrifying. The development of aircraft
and rockets and electronics has become equally
incredible. In order to prevent any possible misconception
of the terrible potentialities of the future, I
asked the Commanding General of the Army Air
Forces to prepare an estimate of the capabilities of
other modern weapons. His report is confined to the
certainties but, as is obvious from the atomic bomb,
the developments of war have been so incredible
that wildest imagination will not project us far from
the target in estimating the future. Much of the information
has until now properly been classified highly
secret in our development research laboratories, at
our testing establishments, or in the combat units.
However, it is now so important that the people of the
United States realize the possibilities of the future,
that I here quote from General Arnold's report:

At the start of this war we had bombers capable of 200 miles
per hour with a combat radius of 900 miles, effective operational
ceilings of 24,000 feet, and bomb load capacity of 6,000 pounds.
Today our development of this type aircraft has given us bombers
capable of carrying 20,000 pounds of bombs to targets 1,600
miles away at speeds of 350 miles an hour and altitudes of over
35,000 feet. Radar has improved our bombing technique so that
we can now attack a target effectively even though it be obscured
by weather or darkness. We will produce within the next few
years jet-propelled bombers capable of flying 500 to 600 miles an
hour to targets 1,500 miles away at altitudes of over 40,000 feet.
Development of even greater bombers capable of operating, at
stratospheric altitudes and speeds faster than sound and carrying
bomb loads of more than 100,000 pounds already is a certainty.
These aircraft will have sufficient range to attack any spot on the
earth and return to a friendly base.

In 1941 our propeller-driven fighters were limited to speeds of
300 miles an hour, a range 200 to 300 miles, and effective ceilings
of 20,000 feet. Today our conventional fighters have speeds of 50
miles an hour, combat ranges of 1,300 miles, and effective ceilings
of 35,000 feet. Improvement of our jet fighters may well produce
within the next five years an aircraft capable of the speed of sound
and of reaching targets 2,000 miles away at altitudes of above
50,000 feet. When the barrier of compressibility has been hurdled,
as it surely will be, there is no practicable limit to the speed
of piloted aircraft.

At the onset of this war demolition bombs ranged in size from
20 top 2,000 pounds with a few light case 4,000 pound blast
bombs. The explosive filling of these bombs was standard TNT.
During the war, new bombs have been developed the entire range
from small 4-pound antipersonnel missiles to 22,000 pound deep
penetration city smashers. At this very moment we are making a
single bomb weighing 45,000 pounds to keep pace with the
bomber, already under construction, which will carry such a load.
Air ordnance engineers have blueprinted a bomb weighing
100,000 pounds.

When World War II began we had no rockets. So far the most
spectacular rocket of the war has been the V-2. This weapon has
extended artillery range to 200 miles with little sacrifice in accuracy.
Defense against such weapons requires piloted and pilotless
aircraft capable of fantastic speeds, or powered missiles capable of
finding, intercepting, and destroying the attacker in the air and at
his launching sites or by methods and devices as yet undeveloped.
We can direct rockets to targets by electronic devices and new
instruments which guide them accurately to sources of heat, light,
and magnetism. Drawn by their own fuses such new rockets will
streak unerringly to the heart of big factories, attracted by the heat
of the furnaces. They are so sensitive that in the space of a large
room they aim themselves toward a man who enters, in reaction
to the heat of his body.

All of these weapons and their possible combinations make the
air approaches of a country the points of extreme danger. Many
Americans do not yet understand the full implication of the formless
rubble of Berlin and the cities of Japan. With the continued
development of weapons and techniques now known to use, the
cities of New York, Pittsburgh. Detroit, Chicago, or San Francisco
may be subject to annihilation from other continents in a matter
of hours.

The Navy, now the strongest in the world, will protect our
shores against attack from any amphibious enemy who might

--110--

challenge through the sea approaches, but we must also now be
prepared to oppose stratospheric envelopment with the techniques
and weapons discussed above. It is clear that the only
defense against this kind of warfare is the ability to attack. We
must secure our Nation by ourselves developing and maintaining
these weapons, troops,a nd techniques required to warn aggressors
and deter them from launching a modern devastating war against us.

With the realization of these facts will also come a
highly dangerous and attractive doctrine. it will be
said that to protect itself this nation need only rely on
its machine power, that it will not need manpower.

This doctrine will be closely akin to the doctrine of
negative defense which destroyed France. The folly of
the Maginot line was proved early in the war but too
late to save France. The folly of the new doctrine
which has already begun to take shape in the thinking
of many Americans would also be proved early--but
probably too late to save America.

The only effective defense a nation can now maintain
is the power of attack. And that power cannot be
in machinery alone. There must be men to man the
machines. And there must be men to come to close
grips with the enemy and tear his operating bases and
his productive establishment away from him before
the war can end.

The classic proof of this came in the battle of
Britain. Even with the magnificent fighter defense of
the Royal Air Force, even with the incredible efficiency
of the fire of thousands of antiaircraft guns, controlled
and aimed by unerring electronic instruments,
the British Islands remained under the fire of the
German enemy until the final stages of the war.

Not until the American and British armies crossed
the channel and seized control of the enemy's territory
was the hall of rockets lifted from England. Not
until we had physical possession of the launching sites
and the factories that produced the V weapons did
these attacks cease.

Such is the pattern of war in the 20th Century. If
this nation is ever again at war, suffering, as Britain did
in this war, the disastrous attacks of rocket-propelled
weapons with explosive power like our own atomic
bomb, it will bleed and suffer perhaps to the point of
the enemy's bases of operations and seize the sites
from which he launches his attacks.

There is no easy way to win wars when two opponents
are even remotely well matched. There is no
easy way to safeguard the nation or preserve the
peace. In the immediate years ahead the United
Nations will unquestionably devote their sincere energies
to the effort to establish a lasting peace. To my
mind there is now greater chance of success in this
effort than ever before in history. Certainly the implications
of atomic explosion will spur men of judgment
as they have never before been pressed to seek
a method whereby the peoples of earth can live in
peace and justice.

However, these hopes are by no means certainties.
If man does find the solution for world peace it will be
the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have
ever known. Our own responsibilities to these efforts
are great. Our diplomacy must be wise and it must be
strong.Nature tends to abhor weakness. The principle
of the survival of the fit is generally recognized. If
our diplomacy is not backed by a sound security policy,
it is, in my opinion, forecast to failure. We have
tried since the birth of our nation to promote our love
of peace [Native Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Latin Americans,
Filipinos, Lebanese, Iraqis, and others are not invited
to offer their own characterization of our peaceful history! --HyperWar]
by a display of weakness. This course has
failed us utterly, cost us millions of lives and billions of
treasure. The reasons are quite understandable. The
world does not seriously regard the desires of the
weak. Weakness presents too great a temptation to
the strong, particularly to the bully who schemes for
wealth and power.

We must, if we are to realize the hopes we may now
dare have for lasting peace, enforce our will for peace
with strength. We must make it clear to the potential
gangsters of the world that if they dare break our
peace they will do so at their great peril.

This Nation's destiny clearly lies in a sound permanent
security policy. In the War Department's proposals
there are two essentials: (1) Intense scientific
research and development; (2) a permanent peacetime
citizen army. I will discuss these essentials in
time citizen army. I will discuss these essentials in
detail later in this report. The importance of scientific
research is the most obvious to the civilian, but
the importance of a peacetime citizen army based on
universal military training is of greater importance,
in my opinion.

Nothing will contribute more to an understanding
of the needs of future security than a clear understanding
of what has occurred in this war, the strategic
decisions, the reasons for them, and the operations
by which they were executed. The press and
radio have given the american people a thorough day-by-day
account of the progress of the war within the
limitations of necessary security; never before have
the details of military campaigns been so quickly, so
accurately, and so completely reported. Yet because of
the very bulk of the information plus the blank spots
of essential secrecy it has been difficult for the public
to place the developments in their proper perspective.
It now becomes possible to examine them in retrospect
with an emphasis more nearly approaching
that which history is likely to give them.

--111--

--112--

Victory in Europe

The Strategic Concept

The period covered by my first two Biennial
Reports was a time of great danger for the United
States. The element on which the security of this
nation most depended was time--time to organize
our tremendous resources and time to deploy them
overseas in a worldwide war. We were given this time
through the heroic refusal of the Soviet and British
peoples to collapse under the smashing blows of the
Axis forces. They brought this time for us with the currency
of blood and courage. Two years ago our margin
of safety was still precarious but the moment was
rapidly approaching when we would be prepared to
deal with our enemies on the only terms they
understood--overwhelming power.

In no other period of American history have the colors
of the United States been carried victoriously on
so many battlefields. It is with profound satisfaction
and great pride in the troops and their leaders that this
report is submitted on the campaigns which crushed Italy,
Germany and Japan.

It is necessary to an understanding of the Army's participation
in these campaigns that reference be made
to the decisions which launched them. The forces of
the United States and Great Britain were deployed
under a single strategic control exercised by the group
known as the Combined Chiefs of Staff. As described
in a previous report, this structure of Allied control
was conceived at the
conference of December 1941,
when Prime Minister Churchill, accompanied by the
chiefs of the British Navy, Army, and Air Forces, came
to Washington and met with the President and the
American Chiefs of Staff. It was the most complete unification
of military effort ever achieved by two Allied
nations. Strategic direction of all the forces of both
nations, the allocation of manpower and munitions,
the coordination of communications, the control of
military intelligence, and the administration of captured
areas all were accepted as joint responsibilities.

The President and the Prime Minister, with the
advice of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, made the decision
at this first conference that our resources would
be concentrated first to defeat Germany, the greater
and closer enemy, and then Japan.

In April 1942, President Roosevelt directed me to
proceed to London, accompanied by Mr. Harry
Hopkins, for a conference with the Prime Minister,
the War Cabinet, and the British Chiefs of Staff, regarding
the tentative plan for the invasion of the continent
in a cross-Channel operation. There a general agreement
was reached that the final blow must be delivered
across the English Channel and eastward through
the plains of western Europe. At that time the Red
Army was slowly falling back under the full fury of the
german assault, and it was accepted at the London
Conference that everything practicable must be done
to reduce the pressure on the Soviet lest she collapse
and the door be opened wide for a complete conquest
of Europe and a probable juncture with the Japanese
in the Indian Ocean.

In the discussions at this conference, a tentative target
date for the cross-Channel operations, designated
by the code name ROUNDUP, was set for the summer
of 1943. However, the immediate necessity for an emergency
plan was recognized. It was given the code name
SLEDGEHAMMER, and was to provide for a diversionary
assault of the French coast at a much earlier date if
such a desperate measure became necessary to lend a
hand toward saving the situation on the Soviet front.

Here the Western Allies faced a shortage which was
to plague us to the final days of the war in Europe--the
shortage of assault craft, LST's, LCT's, and smaller vessels.
At least six divisions would be required for a
diversionary action in order to be of any assistance to
the Red Army, and all the resources of England and the
United States were searched for vessels or barges that
could be employed in the Channel. Outboard motors
and marine engines in pleasure craft in the United
States were appropriated for this purpose. An extensive
building program for landing craft was agreed
upon, which necessitated a heavy cut-back or delay in
the construction then underway of certain major combat
ships for the Pacific Fleet. Also there were added
many items which would be required for build-up--engineering
and railroad equipment and rolling stock,
pipelines, hospital set-ups, communication matériel,
and a multitude of items to be required for airfields,
camps, docks, and depots in the British Isles for the
actual Channel crossing and for the support of our
troops once they were in France.

In June, the Prime Minister and General Sir Alan F.
Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, returned to
Washington for a further discussion of SLEDGEHAMMER
and ROUNDUP, and a possible operation in the
Mediterranean. During these discussions, the Allied situation
in North Africa took a more serious turn, culminating
in the loss of Tobruk. The discussions thereafter

--113--

were devoted almost exclusively to the measures
to be taken to meet the threat facing Cairo, Rommel's
forces having been checked with difficulty on the El
Alamein line. Further advances by his Afrika Korps,
with its Italian reinforcements, and German successes
along the southeastern portion of the Soviet front
threatened a complete collapse in the Middle East, the
loss of the Suez Canal and the vital oil supply in the
vicinity of Abadan. It was a very black hour.

In July, Admiral King and I went to London for further
meetings with the British Chiefs of Staff, to determine
if there were not something that could be done
immediately to lessen the pressure on the Soviet,
whose armies were facing a crisis. Poverty of equipment,
especially in landing craft, and the short period remaining
when the weather would permit cross-Channel
movement of small craft, ruled out the diversionary
operation SLEDGEHAMER for 1942.

After prolonged discussions, it became evident that
the only operation that could be undertaken with a
fair prospect of success that year was TORCH, the
assault on North Africa. Landings there would be a
long way from Germany, but should serve to divert at
least some German pressure from the Red Army, and
would materially improve the critical situation in the
Middle East. It was therefore decided, with the
approval of the President and the Prime Minister, to
mount the North African assault at the earliest possible
moment,accepting the fact that this would mean
not only the abandonment of the possibility for any
operation in Western Europe that year, but that the
necessary build-up for the cross-Channel assault could
not be completed in 1943. TORCH would bleed most
of our resources in the Atlantic, and would confine us
in the Pacific to the holding of the Hawaii-Midway line
and the preservation of communications to Australia.

General Eisenhower, who was then established
with his headquarters in London, directing the planning
and assembling of American resources, was, with
the generous acceptance of the British Government,
appointed Commander in Chief of the British and
American Forces which were to carry out the landings
in North Africa. On 13 August he received the formal
directive to proceed with the operation. The target
date was fixed for early November.

We have since learned that the German plan at that
time was to attempt the defeat of Britain by aerial
bombardment and by destruction of her army and
resources in the Middle East. Colonel General Jodl,
Chief of the German Armed Forces Operations Staff,
has disclosed that it was Hitler's plan to break through
Stalingrad and Egypt, and join these two salients in the
Middle East.

The heroic defense of Stalingrad and General
Montgomery's crushing defeat of Rommel at El
Alamein dislocated these gigantic pincers. The further
development of the operations in North Africa from
the east and the west, and the Soviet offensive from
the Volga proved to be the turning points at which the
Axis was forced on the strategic defensive.

In January 1943, the President and the Prime
Minister, with the Combined Chiefs of Staff, met at
Casablanca. It was then apparent that our North
African operations was to be successful, even beyond
original calculations. Tunisia was a lure into which the
German command continued to pour great quantities
of men and matériel, commitments that were certain
to be disastrous for the enemy once the winter rains
ceased and the low clouds over the Sicilian Straits
cleared, in the face of overwhelming Allied superiority
on the sea and in the air. At the conclusion of the
North African campaign, enemy killed and captured
numbered 349,206 Italian and German troops, and
nearly 200,000 tons of enemy matériel.

The problem before the Chiefs of Staff at Casablanca
was the next movement to be made following the
completion of the Tunisian campaign. It still would
have been preferable to close immediately with the
German enemy in Western Europe or even in
Southern France had that been possible of achievement
with the resources then available to General
Eisenhower. It was not.

Axis control of the Mediterranean islands and the
entire reach of the southern coast of Europe from
Franco's Spain to Turkey denied our communications
also across the Mediterranean and forced our shipping
into a 12,000-mile detour around the Cape of Good
Hope. The United States was still involved in the
process of a vast mobilization. The Chiefs of Staff
therefore considered whether we had the strength to
move directly to Italy or what might be the best intermediary
steps. It was decided to assault Sicily (operation
HUSKY) and, with the approval of the Heads of
State, General Eisenhower was advised on 23 January:

The Combined Chiefs of Staff have resolved that an attack
against Sicily will be launched in 1943 with the target date as the
period of the favorable July moon.

Even though a full-scale Mediterranean campaign
now was imminent, it was resolved at Casablanca to
resume amassing in the United Kingdom as quickly as
possible the forces necessary to invade Western
Europe. This build-up was to be one of the most
tremendous logistical undertakings in military history.

It required provision for the transportation, shelter,
hospitalization, supply, training, and general welfare
of 1,200,000 men who had to be embarked in the
United States and transported across the submarine
infested Atlantic to the United Kingdom. The hospital
plan alone, for example, called for 94,000 beds in
existing installations, conversions, and new construction.
The program was later increased by tent accommodations
for 30,000 more beds. Living quarters had

--114--

to be furnished for the assault forces and their supply
troops. There had to be provision for 20,00,000
square feet of covering, storage, and shop space, and
44,000,000 square feet of open storage and hard
standings. Parks for 50,000 military vehicles were
planned; 270 miles of railroad had to be constructed.
More than 20,000 railroad cars and 1,000 locomotives
were to be shipped to the United Kingdom. The Air
Forces required 163 fields, seven centers for combat
crews and replacements, accommodations for
450,000 men, and 8,500,000 square feet of storage
and shop space.

Two-thirds of the vast program of air installation
requires new construction by British and United
States engineers. At the same time the invasion operations
required detailed planning for the installations
we would have to build once ashore in France--hospitals,
depots, shops, railroads, pipelines, and bridging
materials. There was stored in the United
Kingdom, for example, all the construction materials
necessary to rehabilitate completely the port of
Cherbourg, the destruction of which was inevitable.

By July 1943 the flow of matériel from the United
States to Britain had reached 753,000 tons a month
which later was to increase to 1,900,000 tons in the
month preceding the attack. It was necessary to construct
and to allocate from existing resources a total of
3,780 assault craft of various types and 142 cargo
ships. A great many of the assault craft were ocean-going vessels.

Not unmindful that an invasion across the English
Channel against an entrenched Germany Army wa san
operation unequaled in possibility for a major disaster,
the Allied commanders decided to undertake the
great strategic bombardment that was to weaken
Germany militarily, industrially, and economically. It
was clear from the start that this program would
require the tremendous resources of both American
and British manpower and that critical shipping
required for the build-up of the ground forces in
England would have to be diverted from this purpose.
The strategic bombardment of Germany was to be the
mightiest air assault ever conceived. It is now certain
that the decision was a sound one.

Accordingly, at Casablanca the American and British
air force commanders were directed to launch and
increase steadily the intensity of an assault that would
continue day by day, around the clock, to reduce the
enemy's capacity to resist when our armies would
come to grips with the German Army on the continent.
In order of priority, targets for the long-range
heavy bombers were submarine construction yards,
the aircraft industries, transportation, oil plants, and
other critical enemy war industries.

Before the assault of Sicily was actually undertaken,
the President, the Prime Minister, and the Combined
Chiefs of Staff met again in Washington in May. This
meeting, designated the TRIDENT Conference, may
prove to be one of the most historic military conclaves
of this war, for here the specific strategy to
which the movements of the land, sea, and air forces
of the American and British Allies conformed was
translated into firm commitments. There were
changes in detail and technique after the TRIDENT
Conference, but the Pacific strategy was sustained,
and the first great objective, the defeat of the
European Axis, Germany and Italy, and their satellites,
was accomplished.

It was at this Conference that the Combined Chiefs
of Staff decided to extend Allied influence in the
Mediterranean to the point where Italy would be
forced to withdraw from the war. They also approved
the plan of the United States Army Air Forces to strike
Germany a serious blow by reducing her great oil
resources at Ploesti. The first effective attack was carried
out on 1 August 1943 by a force of 178 B-24
heavy bombers. Our losses were heavy, 54 bombers,
but the cost to Germany's ability to wage mechanized
warfare was immense. The Axis had been obtaining
3,000,000 tons of oil a year from Rumania. The continuing
Ploesti attacks materially dried up this source.

At the TRIDENT Conference plans for a direct
assault from the United Kingdom into Europe's classic
battlegrounds were reaffirmed. Even though we were
now firmly entrenched in North Africa, to have
attempted to force Germany from the south across the
Alpine barrier was on the face of it impracticable. In
Europe's innumerable war no vigorously opposed
cross of the Alps had ever been successfully executed.
Operation OVERLORD, the new code name for
the assault of France, which replaced ROUNDUP was
formally accepted and, for the purposes of planning,
the spring of 1944 was designated as the target date.
General Eisenhower was directed to send to the
United Kingdom beginning 1 November seven seasoned
divisions which were fighting in North Africa,
and which would fight in Sicily, even though this
meant that at the very moment he would be committing
his forces in a full-scale campaign in Italy, he
would be obliged to release two Army Corps of seasoned troops.

Nor was Japan neglected at the TRIDENT
Conference. It was decided to maintain an unremitting
offensive pressure on the Japanese even while
our forces closed in to deliver the knock-out blow to
Italy, and we were gathering the tremendous
resources in the United Kingdom that would be necessary
to force the continent. Japan would be
approached both from the west and from the east. On
the Asiatic mainland it was determined to build up the
flow of matériel to China via the air route over the
"hump" and to initiate aggressive land and air operations
to reestablish surface communications with beleaguered
China. In the Pacific, General MacArthur and

--115--

FORTRESS OF EUROPE

Victories in North Africa, the Allied armies now had to
meet and defeat the German armies of the West. It was also
hoped to drive Italy out of the war, but both objectives
could no be accomplished in the same operation. Behind
the Alpine barrier, Nazi Germany could well feel secure
from our attack. Where General Eisenhower stood in the
summer of 1943, he had only two possible routes to Germany--through
Southern France where his maneuver would be
sharply restricted in the Rhone Valley or through Salonika
in Eastern Greece where the Wehrmacht would have had
the advantage of meeting both the Western Allies and the
Red Army on the same front. It was imperative that the
main United States and British forces be concentrated in
the British Isles in preparation for a landing in France and
an advance across the plains of Western Europe.

--116/117--

Admiral Nimitz were directed to move against the
Japanese outer defenses, ejecting the enemy from the
Aleutians and seizing the Marshalls, some of the
Carolines, the remainder of the Solomons, the Bismarck
Archipelago, and the remainder of New Guinea.

From the TRIDENT Conference, the Prime Minister
Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and I proceeded to
General Eisenhower's headquarters at Algiers for a
series of conferences lasting from 29 May to 3 June. At
TRIDENT final conclusions had not been reached as to
the extent to which the mediterranean advance
should continued so that General Eisenhower might be
left in a to exploit every favorable opportunity.
In his villa at Algiers we discussed the future in
detail, and he was authorized to proceed from operation
HUSKY in Sicily as he saw fit with the intent of
eliminating Italy from the war. But it was our purpose
to avoid the creation in Italy of a vacuum into which
the resources of the cross-Channel operation would
be dissipated as the Germans had bled themselves in
the North African campaign.

The Fall of Italy

Formal reports from the theater commanders on all of the operations
of the last two years have not yet been received in the War
Department and this general account of the operations of the
United States Army during that period is based on official messages,
informal reports, and other pertinent documents which are
now available. They are believed to be sufficiently complete for
the purposes of this report. Throughout the war, the Army was
one part of a team composed of the sea, air, and ground forces of
the United States and Great Britain and other members of the
United Nations. It is therefore necessary to a description of the
participation of the United States Army units in the fighting that
the operations of the entire team be outlined.

The amphibious assault of the island of Sicily was
launched on 10 July 1943. For weeks airfields, rail
lines, and enemy fortifications on the island and in
Sardinia and on the Italian mainland had been reduced
by aerial bombardment. Pantelleria had surrendered
on 11 June after an intense air and naval attack. The
small islands of Lampedusa and Linosa had fallen a few
days later.

The attacking force--the Fifteenth Army Group--was
under General Eisenhower's deputy commander
for allied ground forces, Gen. Sir Harold R.L.G.
Alexander. It consisted of the American Seventh Army,
under Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., on the left and the
British Eighth Army, under Lt. Gen. Sir Bernard L.
Montgomery, on the right. The Seventh Army assault
force was made up of the II Corps, commanded by Lt.
Gen. Omar N.Bradley and a separate task force under
Major General Lucian K. Truscott. The II Corps consisted
principally of the 1st and 45th Divisions, and a
paratroop force. The task force was made up of the 3d
Division with a combat team of the 2d Armored
Division. In the British Eight Army were two corps,
including four infantry divisions,m two brigades, and an
airborne division. These troops were embarked from
Algeria, Tunisia, the Middle East, the United Kingdom
and the United States. The Naval Commander in Chief
under General Eisenhower was Admiral of the Fleet
Sir Andrew Cunningham. Vice Admiral Henry K.
Hewitt was the senior U.S. Naval officer.

A wind which had sprung up the night preceding D-day
attained near gale proportions as our convoys
approached their rendezvous. The wind subsided
somewhat before H-hour, but conditions continued
quite unfavorable for landing. In compensation, the
storm had put the beach defenders off their guard.

General Eisenhower wrote me 17 July:

. . . All the initial invasion moves were carried out smoothly, and
an astonishing lack of resistance was encountered on the shoreline.
Capture Italian generals say we secured complete surprise.
The airborne operations, which were executed about
three hours ahead of the landing, were apparently the first real
notice the defenders had of what was coming. Our parachutists
in spite of very high winds and had navigating conditions. The
landings on th east coast were not greatly troubled by the
weather, but the 45th and 1st Divisions had an extremely bad
surf. Admiral Cunningham told me that he considered the
United States Navy landing operations, under Admiral Kirk
(with the 45th Division), to be one of the finest examples of seamanship
he had ever witnessed.

The wind also disrupted our airborne landings
which were scheduled to be made inland from Gela a
few hours before H-hour. Although scattered over a
wide area and suffering heavy casualties from our own
fire directed at transport formations which were off
the prescribed course, the paratroops had a decisive
effect on the successful landing.

General Eisenhower described these tragic difficulties
as follows:

. . . The most difficult thing we have to solve is to work out methods
whereby friendly aircraft can work over our troops and vessels
with safety. Take for example one operation: We were quite anxious
to assemble all the fighting elements of the 82d Division in
the rear of Patton's line as a general reserve, since all the evidence
showed that he might receive some rather serious counterattacks.
Two nights after the original landing, we laid on a very carefully
coordinated plan for bringing in the remainder of the 82d
Division. Sea lanes were established with the Navy and all troops
were carefully warned as to what to expect. In spite of this, the
troop-carrying planes encountered some fire before they got over
the shore and from then on we had a very unfortunate experience.
Some German night bombers came in at the same moment
that our troop-carrying planes did and the dropping of bombs and
flares made all the ground troops open up a maximum fire.In
addition to this, a local counterattack, which took place at too late
an hour to warn the airborne troops, apparently allowed the
enemy to establish a fire zone near the selected landing ground.
The combination of all these things resulted in quite serious losses.
My present reports are that we lost 23 planes, while personnel
losses as yet are unestimated.

A later operation on the British front brought out the lesson
that when we land airborne troops in hostile territory, we should
not do so in successive waves, but should do it all at once. In the

--118--

first wave, where we had surprise, losses were negligible, but in
the two succeeding waves they were very large.

Even in the daytime we have great trouble in preventing our
own naval and land forces from firing on friendly planes. This
seems particularly odd in this operation, where we have such
great air superiority that the presumption is that any plane flying
in a straight and level course is friendly. Spaatz has written Arnold
at considerable length on this subject, and he is convinced, as I
am, that we are going to have to do some very earnest basic training,
in both ground and naval forces. Otherwise, we will finally get
our air forces to the point where they will simply refuse to come
over when we want them. Generally speaking, we are on the
strategic offensive, which means we must have air superiority.
Therefore, we should teach our people not fire at a plane unless
it definitely shows hostile intent.

By sunrise, three hours after the assault, beachheads
had been established along 100 miles of coast,
from just south of Syracuse to west of Licata. Our
troops were moving inland, northeast of Gela, on
D+1, when the Germans directed a heavy armored
counterattack against th3e 1st Division. It was beaten
off largely through expert use of artillery and naval
gun fire. This action provided the most critical
moment of the invasion.

The problems of supply over the beaches were
especially acute during the first two days. The needs
of the combat troops were urgent, but adverse weather
and occasional enemy air attacks made unloading of
ships difficult and hazardous. The beach-supply operation
first proved the excellence of our 21/2-ton
amphibious truck, the "DUKW," an official designation
which quickly became popularized as "DUCK."

General Eisenhower advised me:

. . . Last Monday morning I made a quick tour along the American
beaches, in order to get a visual picture of unloading operations
and also to have a personal visit with Hewitt and Patton. I must say
that the sight of hundreds of vessels, with landing craft everywhere,
operating along the shoreline from Licata on the eastward,
was unforgettable. Everybody I saw was in good heart and anxious
to get ahead.

In the first two days of the invasion more than
80,000 men, 7,000 vehicles, and 300 tanks had been
landed; several small ports had been placed in operation;
at least six airfields had been captured and were
being prepared for use.

Allied aircraft gave close support to ground operations,
flying up to 1,200 sorties each day. Heavy
bombers knocked out the few airdromes remaining
serviceable to the enemy, and the ground troops were
advancing rapidly. All air operations were under the
Mediterranean Allied Air Forces headed by Air Chief
Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder with Lt. Gen. Carl Spaatz as
Commander of the Northwest African Air Forces. All
heavy bombers were organized into the Strategic Air
Force under Maj. Gen. James H. Doolittle.

By 16 July the battle line ran from a point just south
of Catania on the east to Porto Empedocle on the west;
about one-quarter of the island was in our hands. On
22 July, General Patton's forces in a rapid thrust across
the western end of the island occupied the key port of
Palermo. Further east the troops forged steadily ahead
through rugged mountains stubbornly defended by the
enemy. By the end of July only the northeastern corner
of the island remained to the enemy.

Catania, the east coast bastion which had held up
the advance of the British Eighth Army, fell early in
August. The Germans and Italians were already withdrawing
across the Strait of Messina under heavy air
bombardment and continued pressure by our ground
forces. On 16 August patrols of our 3d Division
entered Messina from the west simultaneously with
British units from the southeast and the next day organized
resistance ceased. In 39 days the Sicilian campaign
had ended. Through the use of a heavy concentration
of antiaircraft guns the Germans managed to
extricate thousands of their first-line panzer and airborne
troops as well as a considerable amount of light
equipment over the Straits of Messina to the mainland.
Nevertheless, for the Axis the loss of Sicily was a
major military disaster. Their casualties totaled
167,000 of which 37,000 were Germans. Our casualties
totaled 31,158 killed, wounded, and missing.

General Eisenhower reported:

. . . Nine months after the first landings in North Africa, the Allied
Force had not merely cleared its shore of enemy forces, but had
wrested from him the Sicilian bridge to use as our own in an
advance onto the Italian mainland.

On to the Boot

Operation HUSKY, as we had hoped precipitated a
political disaster for the Axis. On 25 July, King Victor
Emmanuel proclaimed the resignation of Mussolini. In
August the President and the Prime Minister with the
Combined Chiefs of Staff met at the Citadel at Quebec,
the meeting being designated the QUADRANT
Conference. By now the Italian Government was ready
to quit. Marshal Badoglio had established contact with
General Eisenhower in an effort to negotiate a surrender
without the knowledge of the Germans. General
Eisenhower was instructed to accept the unconditional
surrender of Italy and to obtain the greatest possible
military advantage from this development. He was to
seize Sardinia and COrsica and attempt the establishment
of air bases in the Rome area and northward, if
feasible, maintaining unrelenting pressure on German
forces in Northern Italy. At the same time, he was
directed to coordinate his plans with the requirements
of operation OVERLORD.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff at the QUADRANT
Conference also conceived the operation against
Southern France designated operation ANVIL and
arrived at these conclusions:

Offensive operations against Southern France 9to include the
use of trained and equipped French forces) should be undertaken
to establish a lodgment in the Toulon-Marseille area and to exploit

--119--

Operation HUSKY

--120--

Northward in order to create a diversion in connection with
OVERLORD. Air nourished operations in the southern Alps will, if
possible be initiated.

On 8 September, the day before American troops
landed on the Italian mainland, the unconditional surrender
of Italy was announced. On 9 September and
the succeeding days the principal elements of the
Italian fleet surrendered.

Compelling reasons had developed for the invasion
of the Italian mainland. The operation (AVALANCHE)
would enable us to capitalize on the collapse of Italian
resistance; it offered a field for engaging German divisions
which otherwise might operate against the Red
Army and later against the forces in France; it would
provide airfields from which the German homeland
and the Balkans could be bombed from substantially
shorter range; it would complete Allied control of the Mediterranean.

Canadian and British divisions of General
Montgomery's Eighth Army crossed the Strait of
Messina under cover of heavy artillery and air bombardment
and landed on beaches near Reggio Calabria
and Villa San Giovanni on 3 September. The beachheads
were quickly secured, and the Eighth Army
advanced northward through Calabria.

Six days later the U.S. Fifth Army under command
of Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark disembarked on beaches
along the Gulf of Salerno. It landed with the VI
Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. E.J. Dawley on the
right and the British X Corps on the left. The VI
Corps was composed principally of the 36th and
45th Divisions. American Rangers and British
Commando units landed on the Sorrento Peninsula,
north of the port of Salerno.

The enemy had suspected that we might undertake
an amphibious operation against the Naples area, and
as a result enemy reaction to the Salerno landings was
swift and vigorous. It was evident that the German
High Command had decided that its only hope of salvaging
the situation arising from the surrender of the
Italian Government lay in holding the Allied forces
south of Naples until fresh dispositions could be
made. On D-day the Germans made several local tank
attacks. By 13 September the German XIV Panzer
Corps was in action, and both the American and the
British Corps were under heavy attack. The situation
was critical.

General Eisenhower and his ground force commander,
General Alexander, fully anticipated that they
were in for a heavy fight at the foot of the Italian boot.
They had estimated that eight German divisions were
available to oppose the landings. Two were in and
north of Rome. The Hermann Goering Panzer
Division and the 15th Motorized Division were in the
Naples area, and four more first-class divisions
(the 16th and 26th Panzer,29th Motorized, and 1st
Parachute) were south of Naples. The enemy forces in
the south were heavy in armor. General Alexander, on
the other hand, had to lodge assault infantry on the
mainland first. The shortage of shipping made it
impossible for him to bring his own heavy armor into
the fight until the British 7th Armored Division started
to unload on D-5. A further handicap was the
necessity of making large forces available for the
OVERLORD build-up at this time. The U.S. 1st and 9th
Divisions and 2d Armored Division which had fought
in Sicily were already staging for their movement to
the United Kingdom. Later the 82d Airborne Division
was withdrawn from the fighting at Salerno and sent
to Britain.

The narrow margin which we were compelled
to allocate our resources so that Germany might be
defeated at the earliest possible moment required
superhuman effort by troops and commanders. Every
available combat aircraft of both the Tactical and the
Strategic Air Forces was thrown into the action.
Bombers flew two missions a day, isolating the battle
area and pounding German strongpoints. During the
four critical days our Air Forces flew 3,000 sorties and
dropped 2,150 tons of bombs in close support of the
ground action. Naval gunfire supported the ground
troops, and the Navy kept the stream of reinforcements
coming in. On 13 September, and again the
next day, reinforcing troops of the 82d Airborne
Division went ashore. By the morning of 15
September the assault was firmly established, the high
ground commanding the beaches had been taken, and
the crisis had passed. While the fighting was in
progress during these critical days General
Eisenhower found time to inform me:

. . . We are very much in the "touch and go" stage of this operation.
We got the Italian Fleet into Malta and, because of the Italian surrender,
were able to rush into Taranto and Brindisi where no
Germans were present. Our hold on both places is precarious but
we are striving mightily to reinforce.

Our worse problem is AVALANCHE itself. We have been unable
to advance and the enemy is preparing a major counterattack. The
45th Division is largely in the area now and I am using everything
we have bigger than a row boat to get the 3d Division in to Clark
quickly. In the present situation our great hope is the Air Force.
They are working flat out and assuming, which I do, that our hold
on southern Italy will finally be solidified, we are going to prove
once again that the greatest value of any of the three services is
ordinarily realized only when it is utilized in close coordination
with the other two.

On 16 September, patrols of the Fifth and Eighth
Armies met 40 miles southeast of Salerno uniting the
fronts of General Alexander's Fifteenth Army Group.
The critical phase of the Italian campaign had ended.

SHortage of assault shipping and landing craft continued
to haunt our operations. A single division, for
example, required for its landing at Salerno 30 LST's,
24 LCT's, 39 LCI's, 9 large transports, 4 freighters, and
numerous miscellaneous small landing craft.
Nevertheless, during the first 18 days Navy crews and

--121--

Operation AVALANCHE

--122--

Army service troops landed over the Salerno beaches
a total of 108,000 tons of supplies. 30,000 motor vehicles, and 189,000 troops.

Allied Air Established in Europe

The advance on Naples followed the successful
completion of the fighting at Salerno. The Fifth and
Eighth Armies under General Alexander were now
deployed abreast. The Fifth occupied Naples and its
harbor on 12 October and the Eighth Army reached
Foggia, seizing its extensive system of airfields. Field
Marshal Kesselring, commanding the German Forces
in Italy, withdrew northward to delaying positions
along the Volturno River. Sardinia had been evacuated
by the Nazis on 20 September and on 4 October
the evacuation of Corsica followed.

The capture of Foggia airfields confirmed our hold
on the mainland. Fighters based in Sicily could carry
enough gasoline to operate only about 15 minutes
over the Salerno beachhead. Now they could be based
in large numbers close to the battle area. From Foggia
our heavy bombers could easily strike at the passes
crossing the Alps, attack German air installations in
Austria and factories in southern Germany, and raid
industrial and transportation centers in the Balkans,
aiding the Red Army. In addition the B-17's and
B-24's of the Strategic Air Forces could reinforce the
efforts of the Tactical Air Forces in isolating the Italian
battle area.

Movement of the heavy bombers and fighter forces
into Foggia was a tremendous undertaking because of
the equipment necessary to establish new runways,
plumbing plants, pipe lines, repair shops, and warehouses.
For some weeks a considerable portion of the
shipping was devoted to the movement of the Air
Forces onto the Italian mainland. By the end of the
year 35,000 combat airmen with their supporting
forces were established in Italy. There were two heavy
bombardment groups, two medium groups, and two
fighter groups operating from 10 airfields. The fall
weather made it necessary to overlay the runways
with steel mat. Pipe lines and pumping stations, largely
recovered from North Africa, had to be installed to
permit the necessary flow of aviation fuel to the airdromes.
This build-up of air power consumed approximately
300,000 tons of shipping during the most critical
months of the Italian campaign. So heavy were
the shipping requirements of the Fifteenth Strategic
Air Force, activated 1 November 1943 under General
Doolittle, that the build-up of our ground forces i9n
Italy was considerably delayed. This decision was a difficult
one for General Eisenhower since the delay
would give the enemy a heavy superiority in ground
troops for a considerable period.

There were now 11 Allied divisions in the Italian
line, but the Germans had at least 24 on the Italian
mainland. Although 14 of these were in Northern Italy
outside the combat zone, the enemy was in a position
to build up a considerably greater defensive force than
General Eisenhower had available for his attack. The
additional Allied air power and the threat of a landing
further north by General Patton's Seventh Army were
counted on to deter the enemy from moving his divisions
south from the Po Valley. This threat was exploited
by skillful use of General Patton and his headquarters.
Following the Sicilian campaign, the Seventh
Army headquarters, which no longer had any divisions
assigned to it, was moved to Corsica. General
Patton's mysterious movements throughout the
Mediterranean area kept the Germans guessing where
the Seventh Army, which they had learned to fear so
much in Sicily, might strike next.

Early in November the II Corps, then commanded
by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Keyes, moved to the mainland
of Italy from Sicily. German plans to hold the line of
the Volturno were frustrated when on the night of
12-13 October the II Corps and the VI Corps, now
commanded by Maj. Gen. J.P. Lucas, of the Fifth Army
forced crossings of that river. Destroying every bridge
and culvert en route, the Germans withdrew to the
"winter line" which they had been preparing feverishly
since the Allied landings on the mainland. This
defensive position stretched across the peninsula, following
generally the lines of the Carigliano and Sangro
Rivers, about 75 miles south of Rome.

The Slugging Battle for Rome

Winter had arrived. Heavy rains were falling and
streams were in constant flood. The resources of our
engineers were taxed to keep in place the temporary
bridges on the vital supply routes. Vehicles and men
mired deep in mud.

Despite the difficulties there was no relaxation of
pressure. The purpose was to seize Rome as quickly as
possible and engage the maximum number of German
divisions. The offensive was a series of attacks and
pauses, the immediate objectives being key terrain
features. It was the hardest kind of fighting. The
Germans had mined the roads, trails, natural cross-country
routes of advance, and even the stream beds.
To reinforce terrain barriers the enemy constructed
strongpoints in which he skillfully employed mine
fields, wire entanglements, log-and-earth emplacements,
and automatic weapons. Machinegun and mortar
emplacements, many of them dug four or five feet
into solid rock, covered every approach. To deal with
them the artillery was heavily reinforced by batteries
of the heaviest field pieces we had produced. The
240-mm Howitzer and the 8-inch gun were rushed
from the United States.

In December the Fifth Army arrived before the
entrance to the Cassino corridor to Rome. The 2d
Moroccan Infantry Division arrived in Italy at this time
and was assigned to it. The United States had agreed

--123--

From Cassino to the Arno

--124--

to equip eight French infantry and armored divisions
including supporting troops.The Moroccan division
was the forerunner of the Corps Expéditionaire
Français which, under the leadership of Gen.
Alphonse Juin, greatly distinguished itself in the hard
fighting of the months that followed.

Allied interest in the Eastern Mediterranean shifted
to the Balkans following the conclusion of the North
African campaign. Maj. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton's
Ninth Air Force based in Northeast Africa bombed
strategic targets there, including the Ploesti airfields
and, with elements of the Royal Air Force's Middle
East Air Command, dropped supplies to the hard-pressed
patriot forces.

The Eastern Mediterranean had constituted a separate
theater under British Command until 5 December
1943 when the entire offensive in the Mediterranean
was brought under one command. On that date the
Combined Chiefs of Staff delegated to General
Eisenhower responsibility for all operations in the
mediterranean other than strategic bombing. Three
weeks later on 24 December, he was appointed
Supreme Allied Commander of the invasion forces
from the West, meaning from the British Isles, and was
ordered to England to take over the final preparations.
General Montgomery, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, and
General Bradley joined him there. Gen. Sir Henry
Maitland Wilson was named Supreme Commander of
Allied Forces in the Mediterranean Area, to succeed
General Eisenhower, and Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers,
U.S. Army, was appointed his deputy. Lt. Gen. Sir
Oliver W.H. Leese assumed command of the British
Eighth Army. General Clark continued in command of
the Fifth Army.

At this time Lt. Gen. Carl Spaatz was selected to
command the United States Strategic Air Forces in
Europe with headquarters in London, and General
Doolittle was appointed commander of the Eighth Air
Force, vice Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, who assumed command
of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces. Maj.
Gen. Nathan F. Twining was given command of the
Fifteenth Strategic Air Force and Maj. Gen. J.K.
Cannon continued in command of the Twelfth
Tactical Air Force.

Early in January the French Corps, under General
Juin, took over the right sector of the Fifth Army Front
from the United States VI Corps, which was withdrawn
to prepare for the Anzio landings. The Fifth
Army then launched its attack against the line of the
Garigliano River.

To disrupt communications in the rear of German
forces in the Cassino area, the VI Corps landed on
beaches near Anzio, 25 miles south of Rome, on 22
January. The landing forces included the 3d United
States Division, a British infantry division, and
American Ranger and parachute units. Reacting swiftly
to the threat to his rear, the enemy rushed both
infantry and armor to the Anzio area: the Hermann
Goering Panzer Division was hastily shifted to the
beachhead area and other divisions were sent down
from Northern Italy. By the end of January the Allied
troops in the beachhead faced a perimeter of strong
German forces. With observation from the surrounding
hills the Germans were able to deliver persistent
accurate artillery fire throughout the flat beachhead
and against ships near the shore.

Defeating the initial effort to capture Cisterna, the
enemy drove in an attack to split the beachhead and
annihilate our forces ashore. A masterful defense, in
which the 3d and 45th Divisions suffered heavily but
fought magnificently, halted the counterattacks which
reached their peak of intensity of 17 February. Later
in the month, the Hermann Goering and 29th Panzer
Grenadier Divisions led another unsuccessful drive
aimed at Anzio.

Further south the Fifth Army offensive had been
halted before strong defenses of Cassino. Some of the
bitterest fighting of the war raged at this point.
Determined attempts to capture the town failed in the
face of fanatical resistance by crack German units--notably
the 1st Parachute Division, which General
Alexander termed the best German division on any
front. Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, Deputy Allied
Commander, wrote me on 22 March:

We are struggling here with time. On March 15th I thought we
were going to lick it by the attack on Cassino and advance up the
Liri valley. We used air, artillery, and tanks, followed closely by
infantry. I witnessed the attack from across the valley. It got off to
a start with excellent weather. The bombing was excellent and
severe, and the artillery barrage which followed it and lasted for
two hours was even more severe and accurate, with 900 guns participating.
Two groups of medium bombers, followed by 11
groups of heavies, followed by three groups of mediums, started
on the minute of 8:30 a.m. and closed at 12:00 noon, the groups
coming over every ten minutes up to 9:00 o'clock and thereafter
every 15 minutes. In spite of all this and with excellent support all
afternoon with dive bombers and artillery fire, the ground forces
have not yet attained their first objective. Consequently, the tanks
which were to attack in mass could not get started. These results
were a sobering shock to me. The infantry had been withdrawn in
the early morning hours five miles to the north of Cassino. When
they arrived back in the town of Cassino at approximately 1:00
o'clock close behind the barrage, the Germans were still there,
were able to slow up their advance and even to reinforce themselves
during the night by some unaccountable means.

The attack is still going on but it is my opinion that all we will
gain will be the town of Cassino and possibly a bridgehead over
the Rapido in that vicinity. General Alexander must then stop
and regroup his forces, which he hopes to accomplish by the
15th of April.

After regrouping, the Fifth and Eighth Armies
launched a coordinated offensive on 11 May. As the
attack got underway, the U.S. VI Corps, now under
Maj. Gen. L.K. Truscott, struck out from Anzio beachhead
on 23 May. The attack was made by the 3d, 34th,
and 45th Infantry Divisions, the 1st Armored Division,
the 1st Special Service Force, the 100th Japanese

--125--

--126--

Infantry Battalion, composed of Americans of
Japanese descent, and two British divisions. The 1st
Special Service Force drove east to pave the way for a
junction on 25 May with other Fifth Army forces
advancing northwest along the coast. These forces
included the 88th and 85th Divisions which had
recently arrived from the United States and entered
the line in March and April. Activated after 7
December 1941 and composed almost entirely of
selectees, these two new divisions fought as veteran
units in their first combat assignment, overcoming
extremely heavy resistance. This was the first confirmation
from the battlefield of the soundness of our
division activation and training program, which was
described in detail in my last report.

The units from the south then moved to Anzio from
which the beachhead forces were already thrusting
northeastward for the final drive on Rome. On their
right the French Corps under General Juin struck into
the heart of the German positions covering the Liri
Valley and precipitated a general withdrawal to the
north of Rome. The Italian capital fell to the Fifth
Army on 4 June, two days before Allied forces began
the invasion of France.

We were weakened seriously in the intense fighting
along the approaches to Rome by our inability to
replace the casualties promptly. On 4 February
General Devers had reported:

Casualties have been unusually heavy for the past 10 days, particularly
in infantry. Clark reports 3d Division casualties alone total
2,400 infantry. A shortage in the 34th Division is 1,300 and in the
36th Division, 3,000. Since present operations involve simultaneous
use of all divisions, it is imperative that table of organization
strength be maintained.

Two weeks later he again reported:

Replacements allocated to this theater are not adequate to sustain
operations in Italy on the present scale. At the present time
the United States part of the Fifth Army has an effective net shortage
of 13,072 officers and men.

This shortage of men needed so desperately in our
battle line resulted from the inability of the Selective
Service System to meet the Army's call for manpower
the previous summer. In JUly, Selective Service had
delivered 194,000 men of the Army's call of 235,000.
In August and September the Army had requested
175,000 men a month and received 131,000 in August
and 122,000 in September.

Pursuit to the North

Pursuit of the enemy was energetic even though we
were now making heavy withdrawals in preparation for
ANVIL, the attack in Southern France which was scheduled
for August. Between mid-June and the last of July
more than a division a week was withdrawn from the
forces in Italy to train and stage for this operation. The
45th was ordered out of the line on 14 June, the 3d on
17 June, and the 36th on 27 June. The United States IV
Corps under Maj. Gen. W.D. Crittenberger moved into
the line in place of the VI Corps, which had been withdrawn
13 June. The French Corps of four divisions (1st
Motorized Moroccan, 3d Algerian Infantry, 4th
Moroccan Mountain, and 2d Moroccan Infantry) were
withdrawn between 2 and 21 July, and replaced by the
II Corps which had been out of the line for a rest.

To compensate partially for this heavy drain on his
resources and to utilize more fully antiaircraft units
which were no longer required in such large numbers
as a result of our increasing air superiority, the theater
commander retrained several groups as infantry to
form the 473d Infantry. At this time the 442d Infantry
Regiment, composed of Americans of Japanese
descent, was fighting with distinction on the left flank
of the Fifth Army. Thus, by the end of June, Pescara,
95 miles east of Rome, had been captured and the
Allied line extended across the peninsula through
Lake Trasimento. In July the Fifth and Eighth Armies
gained 50 miles. After heavy fighting lasting two
weeks. Florence fell to British troops of the Fifth
Army. Five days later United States troops captured
Pisa. Meanwhile, the Eighth Army had passed through
the Apennine Divide, and on 21 September captured
Rimini in the valley of the Po.

During the withdrawal of troops for ANVIL, one
American division, the 91st, had arrived to reinforce
the Fifth Army. On 15 September a combat team of
the Brazilian Expeditionary Force moved into the
Fifth Army line in the Valley of the Serchio River.
Before the end of autumn the entire Brazilian division
was in the line. During this same period one of the
Army's two Negro divisions, the 92d, which had
reached Italy during the late summer and fall, was
assigned to the IV Corps.

The advances had brought General Alexander's
Allied armies up against the "Gothic Line," an elaborate
transpeninsular defense system which the Germans
had been preparing since early in the year. Despite the
heavy diversion of troops to other theaters it was
decided to launch another general offensive on 10
September for the purpose of breaking through the
Apennines into the Po Valley. While the U.S. Fifth
Army assaulted the Gothic Line frontally through the
mountains, the British Eighth Army, now commanded
by Lt. Gen. Sir R.L. McCreery attacked northwest from
Rimini. This offensive involved our troops in some of
the bitterest and most difficult fighting of the Italian
campaign. The jagged Apennines and bad weather
seemed almost insurmountable obstacles.

After three months of this costly but successful penetration
of the Gothic Line, the Allied command prepared
in December to drive on Bologna, but pressure
against the western flank of the Fifth Army and diversion
of Eighth Army units to meet the political crisis in
Greece disrupted these plans. Meanwhile the
Germans had time to refit and strengthen their forces

--127--

and establish a new defensive position. Kesselring was
under orders to hold south of Bologna. In addition to
German replacements, the enemy brought up units of
Mussolini's Fascist Republican Army, which had a
strength of four new Italian divisions.

On 12 December 1944 Field Marshal Alexander
replaced Gen. Sir Henry Maitland Wilson as Supreme
Commander in the Mediterranean area. General
Wilson was promoted to Field Marshal and senior representative
in Washington of the British Chiefs of Staff.
Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark moved up to command the
Allied armies in Italy and Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott
assumed command of the Fifth Army.

In January the Fifth Army was reinforced by the
10th U.S. Mountain Division which gave a fine exhibition
of battle efficiency on its initial employment.
During the winter, three Italian combat groups
entered the line of the Eighth Army. These small gains
were more than offset by a February directive from
the Combined Chiefs of Staff which ordered the transfer
of five British and Canadian divisions to the
European Theater. The directive was later amended to
send three to France, one to the eastern
Mediterranean, and retain one division in Italy for
possible use in the impending final battle. This movement
of more than 125,000 combat troops was
accomplished in complete secrecy and gave Marshal
Montgomery's Northern Army Group on the Rhine
additional power to the surprise of the enemy.

During the fall and winter months, the Tactical and
Strategic Air Forces pounded away at communications
over the Alps and in Northern Italy. With opposing
ground forces so nearly equal in strength, the Air
Forces represented our margin of advantage and
made the maintenance of German forces in Northern
Italy most difficult while our own was unmolested. In
addition, Italy-based aircraft assisted the Yugoslav
patriots. Closely coordinated with the attacks staged
from Britain, the Strategic Air Forces struck heavy
blows at oil and rail targets in Austria and southern
Germany, averaging weekly bombloads of nearly
4,000 tons.

The Final Phases

Ground action on the Italian front in the late winter
was limited to small but important advances in the
mountains southwest of Bologna. The strategic aircraft
kept up the pressure on communications and
industrial targets beyond the Alps, reaching as far
north as Berlin.

On 9 April, General Clark's Fifteenth Army Group
launched its spring drive, known as operation
GRAPESHOT. The Eighth Army led off with an attack
across the Senio River west of Ravenna. In spite of
unusually heavy air and artillery preparation, the
offensive met stiff opposition from the German Tenth
Army in approaching the Argenta Gap. Five days later,
after the enemy had presumably had time to dispose
himself to meet the Eighth Army attack, the II and IV
Corps of the Fifth Army threw their weight into the
offensive from positions in the Apennines south and
southwest of Bologna.

After a week of heavy fighting our troops broke into
the Po Valley and entered Bologna from the west and
south. At the same time, Polish forces of the Eighth
Army entered the city from the east. The Fifth Army
columns beyond the city swept up the great highway
leading to Placenza--the ancient Via Emilia--and, bypassing
Modena to the east, drove toward the Po
south of Mantua. Pursuing the disorganized enemy to
the river, bridgeheads were quickly established across
the Po on 23 April. The Eighth Army met determined
resistance in Ferrara, but by the 25th had crossed the
Po in force. On the same day, our forces on the
Ligurian Coast captured Le Spezia with its naval base.
The German armies were virtually destroyed south of
the Po, the bulk of their equipment being either
destroyed or abandoned.

The final week of the war in Italy brought wide
advances throughout northern Italy. Bridging many
rivers that flow south from the Alps, the Eighth Army
swept northeast along the Adriatic coastal plain, liberating
Padua, Venice, and Treviso. While Fifth Army
infantry and mountain troops drove into the foothills
of the Alps along the Brenner route, other armored
columns and motorized infantry raced up the valley
of the Po and by 29 April had reached the great city
of Milan.

On every side effective support was received from
the Italian patriots. After seizing Genoa, our Ligurian
forces drove beyond Savona to make contact with the
French. Advance elements of the 442d Japanese
American regiment reached Turin. Resistance collapsed
everywhere; more than 160,000 prisoners
were taken by the Allied armies. By the first of May,
Eighth Army troops advancing on Trieste had made
contact with Yugoslav partisans at Monfalcone. On 2
May 1945 the commander of the German armies in
Northern Italy found it impossible to continue the
bloody struggle and capitulated.

The Italian triumph is a striking demonstration of
the solidarity of the United Nations. Fighting under
the Fifteenth Army Group, at some time during the
Italian campaign, were Americans, British, Canadians,
French, New Zealanders, South Africans, Poles,
Indians, Brazilians, Italians, Greeks, Moroccans,
Algerians, Arabs, Goums, Senegalese, and a brigade of
Jewish soldiers.

The entire campaign was slow and bitter. The Allied
troops did not have the superiority they enjoyed in
Western Europe, where geography had compelled us
to make the great effort. Nonetheless, the Italian campaign
made a heavy contribution to the successes on
the Western Front, pinning down German forces

--128--

which Hitler needed badly to reinforce his weakened
armies, both in the east and west. The troops participating
in the Italian campaign should feel as great a satisfaction
in the defeat of the Axis enemy as those of the
larger forces which drove into the heart of Germany
from the west and made contact with the Red armies.

ORDER OF BATTLE MEDITERRANEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS AS OF 2 MAY 1945

Unit

Commander

Location

Fifteenth Army Group

Gen. Mark W. Clark

Florence, Italy

Fifth Army

Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott

Verona, Italy

II Corps

Lt. Gen. Geoffrey Keyes

Italy

10th Mountain Division

Maj. Gen. George P. Hays

Italy

85th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. John B. Coulter

Italy

88th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. Paul W. Kendall

Italy

IV Corps

Maj. Gen. Willis D. Crittenberger

Italy

1st Armored Division

Maj. Gen. Vernon G. Prichard

Italy

34th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. Charles L. Bolte

Italy

92d Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond

Italy

British Eighth Army

Lt. Gen. Sir R.I. McCreery

Italy

91st Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. William G. Livesay

Italy

U.S. Army Air Forces in MTO

Lt. Gen. J.K. Cannon

Caserta, Italy

Twelfth Air Force

Maj. Gen. B.W. Chidlaw

Florence, Italy

XXII Tactical Air Command

Brig. Gen. T.C. Darcy

Italy

Fifteenth Air Force

Maj. Gen. N.F. Twining

Bari, Italy

XV Fighter Command

Brig. Gen. D.C. Strother

Italy

--129--

Operation OVERLORD

This is the perspective with which the Allied Supreme Commander
viewed his problem. The English Channel was the most difficult
barrier to the invasion of Western Europe because of the navigational
hazards and the extreme tidal variation along the French
Coast. But once firmly ashore anywhere from the lowlands to the
Franco-Spanish border, there would be unlimited freedom of
maneuver and ample opportunity to improvise communications
for the Armies driving on the German heartland.

--130/131--

Operation OVERLORD

In November and December 1943, the Combined
Chiefs of Staff had met with President Roosevelt and
Prime Minister Churchill at the SEXTANT Conference
in Cairo and then with the President, Prime Minister
Marshal Stalin and his Military adviser at Teheran. By
that time it was clear how the defeat of Germany
could be brought about--but the Allies were beset by
innumerable specific problems of implementing the
desired strategy.

The greatest of these by far was the critical shortage
of landing craft. Those available for the top priority
operation OVERLORD in Normandy still seemed insufficient
and there were many other vital operations
that had to be undertaken if we were to maintain the
initiative on the global battlefronts. Even though an
attack in the south of France was considered essential
to the success of OVERLORD, the Combined Chiefs of
Staff had previously directed that 68 landing ships be
returned from the Mediterranean Theater to the
United Kingdom beginning 15 January to meet the
requirements of the cross Channel assault as then
planned. Despite these additional ships, it became evident
that there would not be sufficient landing craft in
Great Britain by the invasion target date to provide a
sufficient margin of safety for the hazardous amphibious
assault. Therefore, upon their return to Cairo
from Teheran, the Combined Chiefs resolved that
more strenuous measures must be taken to permit a
broadening of the initial landing in Normandy. The
Mediterranean Theater could be bled no further. Only
sufficient resources were left there for an assault
force of two divisions for Southern France, and military
intelligence indicated that while this force could
probably overcome anticipated German resistance on
the Riviera coast, the rapid development of the operation
northward up the Rhone valley would not permit
further reduction. The remaining possible source
for additional landing ships was in the shipyards of
Great Britain and the United States. Such an increase
in time for OVERLORD would require a miracle of
production since these shipyards were already overcrowded
and working at furious speed to maintain
the heavy existing schedule of landing craft production,
as well as that for the construction of destroyers
and destroyer escorts urgently required to combat
the German submarines.

An added complication at this time was the possibility
that Turkey might enter the war on the side of
the United Nations, exposing herself to attack by
Bulgaria. The possibility of operations to support her
in the eastern Mediterranean had to be considered.

At the same time there was grave concern over the
situation then obtaining in Asia. The Generalissimo,
Chiang Kai-shek, met with President Roosevelt, Prime
Minister Churchill, and their military advisers at Cairo,
and all were convinced that a determined effort must
be made to reestablish surface communications with
our Chinese Allies in 1944. Agreement was reached
for operation CAPITAL in which the forces of Admiral
Mountbatten and General Stilwell were given the mission
of investing Northern and Central Burma. It was
realized that the success of these operations could be
made much more certain by an amphibious landing in
the Bay of Bengal, but there were not sufficient landing
craft to insure the success of our European offensive
and at the same time undertake a landing on the
shores of Burma.

Victory in this global war depended on the successful
execution of OVERLORD. That must not fail. Yet
the Japanese could not be permitted meanwhile to
entrench in their stolen empire, and China must not
be allowed to fall victim to further Japanese assaults.
Allied resources were searched through again and
again, and strategy reconsidered in the light of the
deficiencies. These conclusions seemed inescapable:
France must be invaded in 1944, to shorten the war
by facilitating the advance westward of the Soviet
forces. At the same time German technological
advances such as in the development of atomic explosives
made in imperative that we attack before these
terrible weapons could be turned against us. In addition,
the pressure on the Japanese in the Pacific must
not be relaxed. Communications with China must be
reopened. Resources were allocated accordingly. The
balance was extremely delicate but we had to go ahead.

When General Eisenhower was selected as the
Supreme Allied Commander for OVERLORD after the
resumption of the conference at Cairo in December,
he received this directive:

You will enter the continent of Europe and, in conjunction with
the other Allied Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart
of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.

Accompanied by his Deputy Commander, Air Chief
Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, General Eisenhower
arrived in Britain in mid-January. Almost immediately
he wrote:

It is obvious that strong and positive action is needed here in
several directions. The location of various headquarters, the exact
pattern of command, the tactics of the assault, and the strength in
units and equipment, are all operations that have not yet been definitely
settled. The most important of all these questions is that of
increasing the strength of the initial assault wave in OVERLORD.

The search for greater resources for OVERLORD
continued until it seemed that the time and energy of
the Allied commanders was almost completely
absorbed by a problem that defied solution. We had
gone to the shipping experts and the shipyard owners
to urge them to bend greater than human efforts to
step-up the output of their precious landing craft. The

--132--

shipyards broke all records to meet our requirements
but there still were not enough landing craft in sight.

After intensive calculations which taxed the
endurance of the military and naval planners, two
major decisions were made. The target date of invasion
was advanced from early May to early June, even
though this pushed us closer to the time when weather
conditions would turn against us. The operations in
Southern France, which were originally to be made
simultaneously with the attack on Normandy, were
delayed months so that landing craft could be used
first in the Channel, then rushed to the Mediterranean
to do double duty both in OVERLORD
and ANVIL.

The Preparations

At the time of the QUADRANT Conference at
Quebec in August 1943, there had been but a single
United States division in the United Kingdom and
our trans-Atlantic shipping effort was concentrated
on filling the heavy requirements of the
Mediterranean campaign. By late August 1943, shipping
was partially released from this heavy southern
commitment and troops again began to pour into the
British Isles. On D-day, 6 June 1944, the strength of
the United States Army in that theater was 1,533,000;
in the interim an average of 150,000 men had been
transported each month.

The build-up of this force, together with a corresponding
accumulation of supplies of all kinds,
involved a tremendous job of transportation, and special
credit must be given to the Navy for its vital part
in the undertaking. An enormous administrative task
was also involved, since facilities for quartering and
training such large forces had to be provided within
the limited area of the United Kingdom. The efficiency
of the preinvasion build-up is exemplified by the
speed with which units landing in Britain were provided
with their essential arms and equipment.
Through a system of preshipping and storing, the
Army Service Forces were able to have equipment distributed
and waiting for each unit on its arrival.
Within a maximum of 30 days after debarking, divisions
were fully equipped and ready for action.

The units arriving in the United Kingdom from
America were well trained, especially in fast-moving
corps and army operations over large areas; those
coming from the Mediterranean were battle-tested.
Nonetheless, everything possible was done during
their staging period in the United Kingdom to
increase their combat efficiency despite the limited
terrain available in a densely populated and cultivated
countryside. The troops which were to make the
assault landings maneuvered realistically on beaches
and ground which approximated the target areas. In
the early spring of 1944, joint exercises of the
ground, sea, and air forces which were to make the
attack were held along the southern coast of
England. It was a full-dress rehearsal.

Three weeks before the invasion General
Eisenhower wrote:

There is no question at all as to the readiness of the troops.
They are well trained, fit, and impatient to get the job started and
completed. In forecasting future possibilities, it is of course, necessary
that we seek ways and means to bring to bear those factors
in which we enjoy a great superiority over the enemy. These are
control of the sea, command of the air, including resources in airborne
troops and armor. I am trying to visualize an operation in
which we would bring in behind the initial beachhead a great
strength in armor and seek an opportunity to launch a big
armored attack in conjunction with a deep and very heavy penetration
by airborne troops.

Victory in the Air

By 1 July 1943, the Allied strategic air assault of Air
Chief Marshal A.T. Harris' Royal Air Force Bomber
Command by night and General Eaker's Eighth Air
Force by day on the fortress of Europe was in full
swing and was producing important results. Single
raids in which the air force delivered bomb loads of
more than 500 tons had been carried out. Serious
inroads had been made on the combat power of the
German fighter force.

These results had been obtained with an American
air fleet of less than 1,000 heavy bombers and 1,000
planes of other types. By D-day, the strength of the
United States air forces in the United Kingdom
exceeded 3,00 heavy bombers and 6,500 first-line
planes of other types. The attacks on Germany continued
with increasing intensity and shattering power.

The climax in air war came in February 1944, when
the Luftwaffe made a powerful effort to sweep our
day bombers from the skies. The battle raged for a
week. It was fought over Regensburg, Merseburg,
Schweinfurt, and other critical industrial centers. The
German fighter force was severely crippled, and our
attacks continued with unabated fury.

From the time of the Eighth Air Forces first heavy
bomber attack on 17 August 1942 until V-E Day,
United States airmen had dropped more than
1,550,000 tons of bombs on western European targets.
During 1943, following successful attacks on the
enemy's submarine yards and bases, the effort of our
precision bombers was concentrated against aircraft
and ballbearing manufacturing plants, airdromes, and
communications. The German fighter command,
already outclassed in aerial combat, was further
reduced by inability to get replacements. The RAF
Bomber Command concentrated upon the destruction
of the Ruhr-Rhineland industries and the undermining
of the morale of industrial workers.

In order to exploit more fully the flexibility of our
bombardment, particularly against German industrial
targets, the Eighth and Fifteenth U.S. Air Forces were
combined on 1 January 1944 to form "The U.S.
Strategic Air Forces in Europe." Lt Gen. Carl Spaatz
was placed in command. The component forces continued

--133--

The Normandy Beaches

to be based in the United Kingdom and in Italy respectively.

In the late spring of 1944, synthetic fuel plants and
crude oil refineries became the prime targets.
Captured documents now show that the bombing
campaign succeeded in reducing production between
May and October 1944 to five percent of the former
monthly output.

The attack on German industry was coupled with
strikes on German communications. Vital rail junctions
and the canals which were so important in the
enemy's transportation system were repeatedly
bombed. During a single month--May 1944--more
than 900 locomotives and 16,000 freight cars were
destroyed in Western Europe. The effects of this
phase of the air assault were enormous, for transportation
and communications are the life arteries of
a modern industrial state engaged in total war.

Medium bombers and fighter-bombers of Lt.Gen.
Lewis H. Brereton's Ninth Air Force, which moved
from the Middle East during the fall of 1943, struck
enemy airfields in diversionary attacks so timed as to
reduce the concentration of enemy fighters which
might oppose the passage of the heavy United States
bomber formations. Diversionary fighter sweeps further
dislocated the enemy's air opposition. As the
range of fighters was increased through the installation
of additional fuel tanks, they were employed more and
more to escort bombers to targets deep in Germany.

As the aerial offensive mounted the enemy was
forced to withdraw fighters from the support of his
armies in the East to meet the threat from the West.
This was an important factor in enabling the Soviet air
forces to maintain superiority on their front.

It was not merely overwhelming numbers of planes
which gave our air assault its great effectiveness.
There were important, almost revolutionary,
improvements in techniques and in equipment. To
reduce the excessive aircraft losses in long, round-trip
bombing flights exposed to constant enemy
interception, a system of shuttle-bombing between
bases in the United Kingdom and North Africa was
initiated in mid-August 1943. The shuttle-bombing
run was shortened as the advance in Italy continued.
A shuttle system between Italy and the U.S.S.R. was
inaugurated with a heavy raid on rail communications
in Central Europe on 2 June 1944. Soon thereafter,
shuttle-flights were made between the United
Kingdom and the new Ukrainian bases.

Radar bombing technique, first employed in the fall
of 1943, improved constantly. All-weather bombing
approached reality; our bombers used the cover of
darkness and inclement weather to achieve surprise,
yet still hit their target with precision.

--134--

In the spring of 1944, three months before D-day,
the Allied air forces, while still hammering at their
strategic targets, began directly to prepare the way
for the invasion. Through destructive attacks on key
bridges and rail centers, the "invasion coast" was
effectively isolated. As a result of this preparatory
bombing, the ability of the enemy to shift reserves to
the critical area was severely restricted. Since the outcome
of an amphibious operation hinges on the relative
ability of the opposing forces to build up strength
in the critical areas, this air preparation was a decisive
factor in the success of OVERLORD. Even with
favorable Channel weather, it would have required at
least 15 weeks for the Allies to land as many divisions
as the Germans had available in Belgium and
Northern France.

The Assault

The beaches of Normandy were chosen for the
assault after long study of the strength of German
coastal defenses and the disposition of German divisions.
The absence of large ports in the area was a serious
obstacle, but it was offset in some measure by the
relative weakness of the German defenses and elaborate
construction in Britain of two artificial harbors to
be emplaced off the beaches.

The selection of target dates and hours for the
assault required an accurate forecast of the optimism
combination of favorable weather, tide, and light
conditions. Moonlight was desirable for the airborne
operations. D-day was scheduled for 5 June; this date
was changed to 6 June because of unfavorable but
clearing weather. Hundreds of craft, en route from
distant ports on the west coast of England, were
already approaching the invasion area; they had to
backtrack or seek shelter in the overcrowded harbors
on the south coast. The final forecast for the
attack day predicted high winds; the sea was still
rough, but rather than accept a delay of several
weeks until tide and moon provided another favorable
moment. General Eisenhower made the fateful
decision to go ahead.

At 0200 hours on 6 June 1944, the American 82d
and 101st Airborne Divisions, as well as British airborne
troops, were dropped in vital areas in the rear
of German coastal defenses guarding the Normandy
beaches from Cherbourg to Caen.

The seaborne assault under the over-all command of
Field Marshal Montgomery was made on a broad
front; British and Canadian forces commanded by Lt.
Gen. Sir Miles C. Dempsey and American forces commanded
by Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley deployed against
50 miles of coast line. Aerial bombardment of beach
defenses along the coast began at 0314, preliminary
naval bombardment at 0550, shortly after sunrise. At
0630 the first waves of assault infantry and tanks landed
on the invasion beaches.

German defenses on all beaches were formidable;
they consisted first of bands of underwater obstacles
designed to break up formations of landing craft;
mines were freely used to make these obstacles
more lethal. The beaches themselves were heavily
mined and strung with wire. Concrete pillboxes
and gun emplacements were sited to deliver withering
crossfire along the beaches. All exits leading inland
from the beaches were blocked by antitank walls and
ditches, mine fields,and barbed wire. Further inland,
mortars and artillery were sited to deliver indirect fire
on the beaches. Open fields were blocked against glider
landings by patterns of heavy stakes, but complete
intelligence gathered up to the moment of assault provided
detailed knowledge of enemy dispositions and
enabled the troops to breach the defenses.

In the American sector, the beach areas totaled
10,000 yards in length. Every 75 yards a landing craft
loaded with assault infantry touched down at H-hour.
Assault veterans charged down the ramps, picked
their way through the bands of obstacles, and immediately
provided cover for the work of naval and engineer
demolition crews which followed close behind.
Each crew had a specific task to perform in clearing
lanes for subsequent waves of craft carrying infantry,
artillery, vehicles, and supplies. Naval gunfire and air
bombardment hammered at artillery and mortar positions,
pillboxes, and gun emplacements.

Resistance by German ground elements was stubborn,
and bitter fighting developed in many sectors.
Our long campaign against the Luftwaffe had greatly
weakened its capacity for combat and, as a result,
there was no effective air opposition to our highly vulnerable
initial landings. Reinforcements, continued to
pour ashore, and by nightfall on D-day, five American
division, the 1st, 4th, 20th, and 82 and 101st
Airborne, with tanks, artillery and other reinforcements,
were firmly established. Also ashore were
advance detachments of the headquarters of Maj.
Gen. Leonard T. Gerow's V Corps and Maj. Gen. J.
Lawton Collins' VII Corps. The British build-up in
their sector was on a corresponding scale. Additional
divisions still afloat were being landed in a steady
stream, constantly augmenting the superiority which
our assault troops had already established over the
German defenders.

By the second morning it was clear that the beachhead
was secure and that the greatest and longest step
toward the destruction of the German armies of the
west had been taken. The "crust" of the German
coastal defense system had been broken. The German
boast that an invading force could not remain ashore
for nine hours had been flung back on the now desperate
defenders.

Shortly after D-day the Combined Chiefs of Staff met
in London in order to be immediately available should
an emergency arise requiring a prompt decision on

--135--

Breakout

some matter beyond General Eisenhower's jurisdiction
as Supreme Commander. The assault went so well
that it was possible on 12 June for the Combined
Chiefs to visit the beaches of Normandy and observe
at first hand the magnitude of the undertaking and the
gallant and skillful manner in which the Allied forces
were overcoming the resistance of the veteran
German soldiers.

Our Army feels great pride in the Normandy assault.
So must the Navy and our British Allies. The Navy's
mission was to transport the troops across the
Channel, to land them properly on the beaches, and
to support the landings with gun and rocket fire. If the
Allied navies had not performed this task brilliantly,
the invasion would have failed before it was well
begun. The combined planning of British and
American staffs, working together with as a single team
with excellent knowledge of enemy disposition,
resulted in precise execution of an operation so complicated
that it almost defies description; its success
must be attributed in great measure to wholehearted
Allied cooperation, as well as to the stout hearts and
fearless courage of the men. The destruction of rail
and road communications by the air forces and their
constant strafing of the highways continued to prevent
the enemy from concentrating a superior force
against the beachhead.

The Breakout

The second phase of the invasion had two objectives:
first, the capture of the port of Cherbourg; and,
second, the build-up of sufficient forces and matériel
to enable the forces to break out from the beachhead
and strike toward Germany. Now the fighting grew
fiercer. After a bitter and costly struggle, Cherbourg
fell on 27 June to the 4th, 9th, and 79th Divisions of
General Collins' VII COrps. Damage in the harbor was
so extensive and difficult of repairs that until the late
fall thousands of tons of matériel were still pouring
over the beaches. Other Allied forces had, by 1 July,
deepened the beachhead by advances up to 20 miles
in the area between Caen and St. Lo against increasingly

--136--

stubborn resistance in the aggressively defended
hedgerows of the Cotentin Peninsula.

General Eisenhower wrote on 5 July:

The going is extremely tough, with three main causes responsible.
The first of these, as always, in the fighting quality of the
German soldier. The second is the nature of the country. Our
while attack has to fight its way out of veery narrow bottlenecks
flanked by marshes and against an enemy who has a double
hedgerow and an intervening ditch almost every 50 yards as ready-made
strong points. The third cause is the weather. Our air has
been unable to operate at maximum efficiency and on top of this
the rain and mud were so bad during my visit that I was reminded
of Tunisian wintertime. It was almost impossible to locate artillery
targets although we have plenty of guns available. Even with clear
weather it is extraordinarily difficult to point out a target that is an
appropriate one for either air or artillery.

In spite of the lack of a major port, the build-up in
the beachhead was completed late in July. On 1 August
the 12th U.S. Army Group, later designated the
Central Group of Armies, became operational under
the command of General Bradley. Its two armies--the
First, under Lt.Gen. Courtney H. Hodges, and the
Third, under Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., totaling 13
infantry and 5 armored divisions,1
had been assembled
in the beachhead area. The Canadian First Army under
General Crerar and the British Second Army under
General Dempsey composed the 21st Army Group,
later designated the Northern Group of Armies, commanded
by Field Marshal Montgomery. These armies
were still dependent on beachhead supply for their
sustenance. Even with unseasonable bad weather
which severely damaged and almost destroyed one of
the two artificial port installations and halted unloading
operations many times, an average of some 30,000
tons of supplies and 30,000 troops were handled every
day. These achievements, without precedent in history,
were not anticipated by the German defenders and,
consequently, their plans for the defense of the French
coast had not taken them into account.

General Bradley was able, on 25 July, to mount the
offensive which broke out of the beachhead at St. Lo
and Avranches and carried the lines swiftly forward to
the Meuse River. Preceding the ground attack 1,500
heavy bombers and hundreds of other combat aircraft
dropped more than 3,390 tons of bombs on enemy
positions on a narrow front. The crushing power of
the air attack and its paralyzing effect on the enemy's
movement blasted the way for rapid penetration of
German lines. While observing preparations for the
attack, one of the Army's outstanding soldiers, Lt.
Gen. Lesley J. McNair, was killed by misdirected
bombs of our own air force. Though his loss was a
tremendous shock to our divisions, which he had
organized and trained, he undoubtedly died in the
way he preferred--in battle [although he probably wouldn't
have anticipated the battle would be with our own
air force! --HyperWar].
General McNair was utterly fearless.

The break-out gave General Eisenhower an opportunity
to deliver mighty blows at the shaken enemy. At
the height of this action he wrote:

My entire preoccupation these days is to secure the destruction
of a substantial portion of the enemy forces facing us. Patton's Third
Army, on the marching wing of our forces, is closing in as rapidly as
possible. His deployment through the bottleneck near Avranches
was exceedingly difficult but we have now got the strength on that
wing to proceed definitely about our business. We have detached
only one corps for the conquest of the Brittany Peninsula so as to
have the maximum forces for the main battle. Within a week there
should be real developments on the present front.

He seized his opportunity, directing a vigorous
pursuit of the shattered German forces. There followed
a campaign which for speed and boldness has
few parallels. Following the First Army's breakthrough,
the Third Army, under General Patton, utilizing
a heavy preponderance of armor, thrust forward
from the Avranches breach on 2 August and
cut off the Brittany Peninsula by 6 August, isolating
the bulk of the 2d Parachute and 265th, 266th and
343d German Infantry Divisions. The next move was
to establish a southern flank along the Loire to protect
our main effort heading eastward against attack
from the south. These were preparatory moves.
While they were in progress, General Hodge's First
Army and the British Second Army were repulsing
and crushing heavy attacks which the enemy
launched in the desperate hope of driving a wedge
to the sea through Avranches to cut off General
Patton's forces.

On 13 August the Third Army swept north from Le
Mans around the southern flank of the German
Normandy position in the direction of Argentan.
Simultaneously, Canadian forces of the British Second
Army drove south from Caen toward Falaise. This pincers
movement created the "Falaise pocket," in which
100,000 enemy troops were captured, thousands
more were killed or wounded, and thousands more
thrown into disorder as they escaped toward the
Seine through the "Falaise-Argentan corridor" held
open by desperate German resistance. The Germans
realized that the battle for Normandy was lost and
they began withdrawing beyond the Seine under
heavy pressure from both the ground and the air. The
Seine crossings were raked by fighter patrols. TUrning
eastward from Le Mans and Argentan, the Third Army
raced for the river with such speed that supply by air
was often necessary to maintain its momentum. By
the capture of Mantes on 18 August the German
escape route was confined to crossings of the lower
Seine northwest of Elbeuf.

Continental Envelopment

Meanwhile, on 15 August, operation ANVIL was
executed by the U.S. Seventh Army under Lt. Gen.
Alexander M. Patch in landings on the southern coast

--137--

Operation ANVIL

--138--

of France, which further weakened the fast-deteriorating
position of the German Army in France.
Preparations for this operation under the general
supervision of the Supreme Allied Commander,
Mediterranean Theater of Operations, had been under
way, while the campaigns in Italy and Northern
France were in progress. The very threat of such a
landing had held substantial German forces of the
First and Nineteenth Armies immobilized in the south
of France, preventing their deployment against our
forces in Normandy. A naval force, comparable in size
to the one which participated in the American landings
in Normandy, had been assembled. An air offensive,
conducted chiefly by the Allied Strategic Air
Forces, prepared the way for the invasion by sustained
attacks on vital enemy communications and installations
in Southern France.

The Seventh Army landed southwest of Cannes in
ideal weather. The area had been selected as the
most favorable approach to the Rhone Valley. The
landing force consisted of elements of General
Truscott's VI Corps, our 1st Special Service Force,
and French commandos. A British-American
Airborne Task Force jumped astride the Argens River
west of St. Raphael the night preceding the seaborne
assault and seized the pass through which our forces
would debouch. By 28 August the beachheads were
firmly established and the advance up the Rhone
Valley was well under way.

The operations had been substantially aided by the
efforts of the French underground. The landing of
our VI Corps had been followed up immediately by
the landing of divisions of the French I and II Corps
of General de Tassigny's First French Army, which
quickly captured Marseille and Toulon; by 1
September Nice had fallen. While the main force
swept west to the Rhone, before moving northward,
a task force from the American 36th Division under
Brig. Gen. Frederic B. Butler headed directly north
from the landing beaches through Gap, seized
Grenoble and then turned northwest toward the
Rhone to cut off the German columns retreating up
the Rhone Valley. This drive into the rear of the
German Nineteenth Army greatly facilitated the rapid
advance of the main body of the VI Corps up the
Rhone Valley. Lyon fell on 3 September and the
advance northward continued unabated.

On 15 September other United States and French
forces were combined into the 6th Army Group (later
designated the Southern Group of Armies) commanded
by Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers. He was succeeded
as Deputy Theater Commander in the
Mediterranean by Lt. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, former
Deputy Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.

The Liberation of France

On 25 August the 2d French Armored Division of
the First U.S. Army entered Paris, as the battered remnants
of the German army which had defended the
Normandy coast fell back north of the Seine. The
Germans had suffered at least 400,000 casualties, of
which more than 200,000 were prisoners of war. The
units which had escaped destruction were forced to
abandon the major portion of their equipment.

As the enemy withdrew he had left behind substantial
garrisons to defend the critical seaports: Brest, St.
Nazaire, Lorient, Dieppe, and LeHavre. In order to
prevent the Allies from developing harbor facilities to
sustain the advance of the gathering millions, the
Germans freely expended thousands of men to make
the supply problem difficult if not impossible of accomplishment.

Despite these obstructions, by 5 September (D+90)
2,086,000 Allied troops and 3,446,000 tons of stores
had been put ashore in France. This was an outstanding
logistical achievement, but nevertheless we were still
in urgent need of additional ports if we were to support
adequately the fast-moving offensive across France that
was operating on a dangerously thin supply basis. Many
divisions had a very limited supply on hand.

On 5 September the Ninth U.S. Army under the
command of Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson began operations
under the 12th Army group for the reduction
of Brest and other French ports, where four German
divisions were bottled up. Dieppe fell on 31 August;
LeHavre on 11 September, Brest on 19 September.
The most strenuous efforts were made to put these
ports into operating condition. Tonnage began moving
through Dieppe on 7 September and through Le
Havre on 9 October. Brest was too heavily damaged
and too distant from future fields of operations to justify
immediate reconstruction.

The defeated German armies now were streaming
across France, heading for the shelter of the Siegfried
Line. They were under constant air attack. On the
ground General Bradley's First and Third Armies, driving
northeast from Melun and Troyes reached the
Aisne and the Marne, sweeping aside the German rear
guards. Field Marshal Montgomery's forces crossed
the lower Seine, invested LeHavre, and pushed on to
the Somme. On crossing the Aisne, the 7th Corps of
the First Army turned northward and raced on to
Mons in a brilliant stroke that cut off five of the
retreating German divisions. The pocket thus formed
yielded over 22,000 prisoners with heavy additional
losses of killed and wounded.

Overrunning Reims and Chalons, our Third Army
pushed eastward, nourished often by air supply, and
by 7 September had reached the line of the Moselle
from Nancy to the vicinity of Metz. On 11 September
elements of the Third Army contacted Seventh Army
columns northwest of Dijon. Four days later the 6th
Army Group passed to operational control of Supreme
Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces, severing
its fighting connection with the Mediterranean theater,
though its supply was continued for some time

--139--

from Italy. On 16 September approximately 20,000
occupational troops of the German Army from the
Biscayne Bay area, moving northeastward toward
Germany, surrendered to the commander of the U.S.
83d Division southwest of Orleans.

To the north, our First Army had crossed the
Belgian frontier on 2 September, captured Liege on
the 8th, crossed Luxembourg, and entered Germany
on the 11th. The enemy had been kept completely
off balance. As the Allies approached the German
border, supply lines were stretched to the limit and
the marching columns of the armies were maintained
only by the3 full use of air transportation, fast
double-lane, one-way track routes, such as the
famous Red Ball Express from the Normandy beaches
to Paris, and other emergency measures. Logistical
difficulties now began to slow down the advance.
Time was needed for the opening of additional ports
and for the relaying and repair of hundreds of miles
of French railroads.

The following extract from a report by General
Eisenhower indicates the severity of the campaign in
France and illustrates the tremendous needs of our
armies during this campaign, in addition to the routine
consumption of huge quantities of gasoline and rations:

Losses of ordnance equipment have been extremely high. For
instance, we must have as replacement items each month 36,000
small arms, 700 mortars, 500 tanks, 2,400 vehicles, 100 field
pieces. Consumption of artillery and mortar ammunition in
northwestern Europe averages 8,000,000 rounds a month. Our
combat troops use up an average of 66,400 miles of one type of
field wire each month. (The AEF during the entire First World
War expended less than 10,000,000 rounds of artillery and mortar ammunition.)

The British 21st Army Group liberated Brussels on 3
September and Antwerp the next day. They crossed
the Dutch frontier on 12 September and by the 15th
the Channel coast was cleared as far north as
Zeebrugge with the exception of the isolated enemy
forces holding out in key ports.

On 9 September 1944 General Eisenhower reported:

The hostile occupation in force of the Dutch Islands at the
mouth of the Schelde is certain to delay the utilization of Antwerp
as a port and thus will vitally influence the full development of our strategy.

Again on 21 September he wrote:

Right now our prospects are tied up closely with our success in
capturing the approaches to Antwerp. All along the line maintenance
is in a bad state--reminiscent of the early days in Tunisia--but
if we can only get to using Antwerp it will have the effect of a
blood transfusion.

The efforts of the British forces on the north flank
were to be devoted for several weeks to clearing the
enemy from these islands. After bitter fighting involving
heavy losses, featured by river crossings and
amphibious landings, the last of the positions was
cleared on 9 November. By 27 November the port of
Antwerp was in operation but under heavy fire of the
vicious German V-weapons which fell at one time at
the rate of one every 121/2 minutes and caused thousands
of Allied civilian and military casualties and cast
grave doubt for a time as to the advisability of continuing
the operation of the port.

The ports of southern France were vital to the U.S.
Seventh Army and the French First Army in the
Southern Group of Armies. Toulon and Marseille
were in operation late in September. Since then 14
divisions were moved through Southern French
ports, in addition to an average daily unloading of
over 18,000 tons of supplies. Two railways were
placed in early operation, including the double-track
main line through Lyon and Dijon, and thousands of
tons of supplies moved daily over these lines and by
truck to forward railheads.Port capacities and transportation
facilities were sufficient to meet the
requirements of the entire Southern Group of Armies
and also to assist in the supply of the Central Group
of Armies until the stubborn defense of the water
entrance to Antwerp was reduced.

After the port of Antwerp became operational, it
handled on an average of over 25,000 tons of stores
daily, despite the V bombs. This tremendous increase
in our over-all port capacity made it unnecessary to
devote more precious time and manpower to reopen
the shattered ports in Brittany, which, although now
in our hands, were much more distant from the front
lines than Antwerp.

Having overcome the acute shortage of port facilities,
the primary bottleneck in the supply line then
became transportation from the port supply dumps
to the front lines. To improve this situation our
Engineers, Transportation Corps, and other supply
troops in Lt. Gen. J.C.H. Lee's communications zone
performed miracles in repairing and building railways,
operating large high-speed truck convoys, and
extending fuel pipelines from the ports and terminals
of 16 cross-Channel pipelines to the forward
areas. At one time 70 miles of pipe were being laid in
a single day.

The Westwall

As the Siegfried Line was approached, and the port
and enlarged transportation facilities became adequate,
General Eisenhower advised the War
Department that tactical plans for the final assault of
this fortification required greater ammunition
resources than those provided, and requested a maximum
production effort in the United States. He forecast
the expenditure of some 6,000,000 artillery and
2,000,000 mortar shells monthly in order to reduce
the Siegfried Line. In this country an urgent demand

--140--

Battle of France

was made for maximum production; fast rail and
water transportation was utilized to make shipments
direct from the production lines to the gun positions,
and rationing to less active theaters, as well as stabilized
fronts in the European theater itself, became
rigid. Only by these measures was it possible to serve
the thousands of guns behind the major assault efforts
and secure an adequate supply of ammunition for the
final battles against Germany.

Field Marshal Montgomery struck through the air at
the northern flank of the Siegfried Line on 17 and 18
September. The U.S. 82d and 101st and one British
airborne division, all elements of Lt. Gen. Lewis H.
Brereton's newly formed First Allied Airborne Army,
landed in Holland astride the Meuse, Waal, and Lower
Rhine rivers in the Eindhoven-Arnhem area. This as
the largest airborne operation ever attempted, requiring
the employment on the first two days of 2,800
planes and over 1,600 gliders. Several airborne operations
had been planned for the period following the
breakthrough in Normandy, but so rapid was the
Allied advance that events overtook the plans in each

--141--

Path of the Red Army

--142/143--

instance. The operation of Holland achieved only partial
success. The American 82d and 101st Airborne
Divisions, landing near Eindhoven, seized crossings of
the Meuse and Waal Rivers. The British Second Army
was able to establish contact with these divisions after
the second day. The important beachheads were held
in the face of desperate German counterattacks. The
British airborne division, landing in the more remote
and exposed Arnhem area north of the Lower Rhine,
was subjected to concentrated attacks by superior
enemy forces. It was finally forced to withdraw south
of the river.

Meanwhile, to the south, our First Army was forcing
its way into Germany. Aachen was strongly defended,
and a bitter battle ensued before it fell on 21 October.
On 3 October the Ninth Army had been brought up
from the western coast of France and entered the line
between the First and Third Armies. Then on 23
October the Ninth Army was moved to the northern
flank of the First Army above Aachen. By the end of
November the Third Army, driving toward the Saar,
had reduced the formidable Metz area and the defenses
along the Moselle and Seille Rivers. A Southern
Army Group offensive into Alsace-Lorraine brought
the 2d French Armored Division of the U.S. Seventh
Army to Strasbourg on the Rhine in late November
and the First French Army to the river between
Mulhouse and the Swiss border. Between the two
armies remained a sizable portion of the Alsace
known as the Colmar pocket.

During the third week in September the Combined
Chiefs of Staff were again in conference at Quebec
with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Churchill. The whole of Northern France and substantial
parts of Belgium and Luxembourg were in
Allied hands. But General Eisenhower reported that
enemy resistance was stiffening as he approached the
German frontier. He reported that it was his intention
to prepare with all speed to destroy the German
armies in the west and occupy the German homeland.
He considered that his best opportunity to defeat the
defenders in the west was to strike at the Ruhr and
Saar, confident the enemy would be compelled to concentrate
most of his available resources in defense of
these essential areas. He preferred the northern
approach into Germany through the Cologne plain for
reasons which the map makes obvious.

Early in October I made a hurried 9-day inspection
trip to the Western Front, visiting American corps and
divisions from the Vosges Mountains north to Holland.
At that time many of the infantrymen had been in
almost constant combat since D-day in June. After
many computations and exchanges of radio messages
with the War Department to determine the effect on
our hard-pressed and delicately balanced shipping situation,
it was decided to rush the movement from the
United States of the infantry regiments of 9 of the 11
remaining divisions ahead of the scheduled departures
of the entire divisions. This was for the purpose
of relieving those regiments which had been in combat
for an excessively long period and to give immediate
increased strength and striking power to our
armies facing a most difficult winter campaign.

With the promise of a large increase of supplies
through the port of Antwerp in late November, and
with more than 3,000,000 troops on the Continent,
General Eisenhower in mid-November launched a
charging offensive to penetrate the Siegfried Line and
place himself in position to cross the Rhine.

Not in years had European weather been so unfavorable
for grand-scale military operations. Resistance
was bitter. The Siegfried defenses were formidable as
anticipated, and our divisions paid heavily for each
inch of ground they tore from the fanatical Nazi
defenders. Nevertheless, by 4 December the Second
British Army had cleared the west bank of the Meuse
and the Ninth Army had reached the Roer. East of
Aachen troops of the First Army fought splendidly
through bloody Hurtgen Forest, taking heavy casualties
and inflicting heavy losses on the stubborn
enemy. The dams of the Roer were seriously inhibiting
General Eisenhower's progress. He wrote:

He (the enemy) is assisted in that area, however, by the flooded
condition of the Roer River and the capability he has of producing
a sudden rush of water by blowing the dams near Schmidt.
Bradley has about come to the conclusion that we must take that
area by a very difficult attack from the west and southwest.

There can be no question of the value of our present operations.
The German is throwing into the line some divisions with
only six weeks training, a fact that contributes materially to his
high casualty rate. As explained in my most recent appreciation to
the Combined Chiefs of Staff, our problem is to continue our
attacks as long as the results achieved are so much in our favor,
while at the same time preparing for a full-out heavy offensive
when weather conditions become favorable, assuming the enemy
holds out. Unless some trouble developed from within Germany, a
possibility of which there is now no real evidence, he should be
able to maintain a strong defensive front for some time, assisted by
weather, floods, and muddy ground.

The Wehrmacht's Last Blow

General Eisenhower was determined to give
Germany no chance to recoup from the blows already
delivered. Despite shortages in troops and supplies,
hist attitude was offensive, and, consequently, he was
compelled to hold some sectors of the front with
comparatively weak forces in order to gather strength
at his points of attack. To the 75 miles between
Monschau and Trier he could assign only four divisions
of the First Army, or sacrifice his effort to bring
about a decision elsewhere. It was here that the
German armies of the west, commanded by Field

--144--

[Battle of the Bulge]

--145--

Marshal von Rundstedt and acting on the direct orders
of Hitler, made their last desperate effort to stave off
the disaster.

On 16 December von Rundstedt attacked with a
force of 24 divisions.He had been able, because of
heavy fog which continued for days, to assemble his
forces in secrecy in the heavily forested foreground.
When the blow came, eight panzer divisions broke
through our VIII Corps line on a 40-mile front.
Diversionary attacks in other sectors and considerable
air and artillery support assisted the main offensive in
Luxembourg.

General Eisenhower reacted promptly and decisively
and subsequent results have proved the eminent
soundness of his plan. All available reserves in the
Central Army Group were used to strengthen the
northern and southern flanks of the penetration and
the XXX British Corps of the Northern Army Group
was deployed to hold the line of the Meuse and the
vital Liege area. With communications seriously disrupted,
Field Marshal Montgomery was charged with
the operation of forces north of the penetration,
involving temporary operational control over most of
the U.S. First and Ninth Armies while General Bradley
coordinated the effort from the south. The 82d and
101st Airborne Divisions were brought up from theater
reserve to retard the momentum of the enemy
thrust, with the 101st, reinforced by armor and
artillery, holding the important road center at
Bastogne. The shoulders of the penetration at
Monschau and Echternach were stubbornly held by
infantry divisions moved in from the north and from
the south, outstanding among which were the 1st, 2d,
4th, and 99th Divisions.

The Ardennes battle deserves a prominent place in
the history of the U.S. Army. The splendid stand of
the 7th Armored Division at St. Vith, the tenacity of
the 101st Airborne and elements of the 10th Armored
Division at Bastogne, and the numerous examples of
superb fighting qualities shown by the troops of other
units were in the finest American tradition.

The tide of battle began to turn when the U.S.
Third Army brought its full weight to bear on the
southern flank of the salient, where General Patton
stopped the advance of the German columns with
available reserves and was attacking on a two-corps
front by 22 December with the III and XII Corps. This
shift from on offensive across the Saar to a general
attack in southern Luxembourg was a brilliant military
accomplishment, including corps and army staff
work of the highest order. Elements of the 5th
Division which were fighting in the Saar bridgehead
on the morning of 20 December moved 69 miles, and
were in contact with the enemy north of the Sauer
River by nightfall.

General Devers' 6th Army Group was required to
assume responsibility for the entire front from
Saarbrucken south, adding over 25 miles to its already
extended front. In order to defend this front adequately,
full use was made in the Seventh Army of the
infantry regiments of three divisions which were just
arriving in the theater from the United States in
advance of their division headquarters and supporting troops.

The weather ceased to favor the enemy between 23
and 26 December, permitting our overwhelming tactical
air forces to strike terrific blows at the German
armor and supply columns. On 26 December the 4th
Armored Division relieved encircled Bastogne. The
crisis had passed, for by this time the German salient
was being assaulted from the north, west, and south.
At the points of extreme penetration, the enemy had
driven more than 50 miles into the American lines,
but he was unable to shake loose our valiant units
fighting desperately to hold the critical shoulders of
the bulge. The depth of his advance was accordingly
limited and it was possible to interdict by artillery fire
all the important supply roads for the leading troops
at the tip of the salient.

The reduction of the Ardennes salient involved our
First and Third Armies in heavy fighting under severe
winter conditions, but progress was steady and by the
end of January the bulge was eliminated at a cost
which later proved fatal to the enemy. In the single
day of 22 January, the air force destroyed or damaged
more than 4,192 pieces of heavy equipment, including
locomotives, rail cars, tanks,and motor and horse-drawn vehicles.

The Germans gained an initial tactical success and
imposed a delay of about six weeks on the main Allied
offensive in the north, but failed to seize their primary
objectives of Liege and Namur. They lost 220,000
men, including 110,000 prisoners, and more than
1,400 tanks and assault guns. The operation was carried
out by the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies, supported
by the Seventh Army, thus stripping the Reich
of all strategic reserves and seriously depleting the
resources required to meet the powerful Soviet offensive
in January.

"Possibly more serious," reported General Eisenhower, "was
the widespread disillusionment ensuing from the failure to seize
any really important objective and the realization that this offensive
for which every effort had been brought to bear and on
which such great hopes were pinned, had in no sense achieved
anything decisive."

In mid-January the Second British Army launched an
attack in the Sittard area and within a fortnight
reached the Roer Valley, 10 miles inside the Reich.
Regrouping of the Allied armies for further offensive
action proceeded during January.

--146--

In an effort to divert the punishing blows from his
forces withdrawing from the Ardennes, the enemy
attacked in the Bavarian Palatinate. Here there was
ground to give, and the U.S. Seventh Army withdrew
to the Maginot defenses west of the Rhine, permitting
the detachment of divisions for the heavy fighting in
the Bulge.

Closing the Rhine

On 20 January the First French Army launched an
attack in the southern Alsace to destroy the enemy's
forces in the Colmar pocket and clear the west bank
of the Rhine. The operation involved a drive through
Colmar by the American XXI Corps, commanded by
Maj. Gen. F.W. Milburn, and simultaneous attacks by
forces of the First French Army under General de
Tassigny from the Mulhouse area. The climax of the
battle was a night assault on the bridgehead town of
Neuf-Brisach by infantry of the U.S. 3d Division using
assault boats and scaling ladders on the moats and
walls of the fortified town, very much after the fashion
of medieval battles. After this aggressive action,
the German position in the Alsace rapidly deteriorated
and by 9 February the Allies held a loosely defended
line along the west bank of the Rhine from
Strasbourg to the Swiss border, freeing troops for use
in other sectors. The offensive in the Alsace cost the
Germans more than 25,000 men.

The reduction of the Colmar pocket and the seizure
of the Roer River dams to the north in the vicinity of
Schmidt were both necessary preludes to clearing the
enemy from the west bank of the Rhine and a full-scale
drive into the heart of Germany. The U.S. First
Army now attacked toward Schmidt while the Third
Army threw its weight against the Siegfried Line in the
Prüm-Trier area. By 10 February the First Army had
obtained control of the Erft and the Schwammenauel
dams, and the following day had cleared the entire
west bank of the Roer. Although failing to prevent the
flooding of the Roer Valley, this action forced the
Germans to release the waters at a time when our
operations would not be endangered, thus removing
the most serious threat to General Eisenhower's plan
for the invasion of northern Germany.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff met at Malta in early
February preliminary to a meeting with President
Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Marshal
Stalin in the ARGONAUT Conference at Yalta a few
days later. En route to the Conference, I met General
Eisenhower briefly at a secrete rendezvous near
Marseilles where we discussed his future plans that
were later approved at Malta, providing for the closing
of the Rhine, the destruction of enemy forces west of
the river, the seizure of bridgeheads across the river in
the north and south and coordinated drives into the
heart of Germany. At Yalta the general plan for the
final destruction of Nazi Germany was established.

Closing the Rhine

--147--

In executing General Eisenhower's plan, a coordinated
drive by the First Canadian Army from the
Nijmegen bridgehead along the watershed between
the Meuse and the Rhine's was necessary and an attack by
the U.S. Ninth Army across the Roer toward
Dusseldorf was to follow shortly afterward. On 8
February the First Canadian Army began its attack following
a heavy air and artillery preparation. Initially,
the Canadian advance was rapid, but flooded terrain
delayed the start of the Ninth Army attack, permitting
the enemy to concentrate against the Canadians.

In preparation for the Ninth Army offensive, the
Tactical and Strategic Air Forces flew almost 10,000
sorties on 22 February, covering rail and transportation
targets throughout the length and breadth of
Germany. These blows from British, French, and
Italian bases were designed to paralyze the German
rail system and isolate the Western Front. The next
day the Ninth Army attack was launched and,
although there was some delay in establishing bridgeheads
of the flooded Roer, the general progress was
quite rapid. By 1 March Roermond and Munchen-Gladbach
were captured and the following day the
armored columns reached the Rhine north and south
of Dusseldorf. Meanwhile, in the Prüm-Trier area, the
Third Army drove across the Our and Sauer Rivers,
capturing Prüm on 13 February. Successive bridgeheads
were established across the Saar and the Kyll
Rivers and on 2 March Trier fell to our troops. From
the launching of the operations on 8 February to 1
March more than 66,000 German prisoners were captured
by the Northern and Central Army Groups.

The Watch That Failed

Advancing on the right of the Ninth Army, the First
Army captured the ruins of Cologne on 7 March
against stout resistance. On the same day elements of
its 9th Armored Division, probing to the Rhine further
south, found the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen
intact and immediately cross to the east bank,
developing a small bridgehead. Such a windfall had
been hoped for but not expected. The prompt
seizure and exploitation of the crossing demonstrated
American initiative and adaptability at its best,
from the daring action of the platoon leader to the
Army commander who quickly redirected all his
moving columns in a demonstration of brilliant staff
management. He established powerful elements
across the river immediately in accordance with
direct orders from General Eisenhower. The bridgehead
provided a serious threat to the heart of
Germany, a diversion of incalculable value both to
the main effort in the Ruhr and to the reduction of
the Saar-Palatinate. It became a springboard for the
final offensive to come.

In the meantime, the Third Army was forcing its
way through the rugged Eifel hills. By 7 March, constant
pressure had crushed the German front north of
the Moselle. General Patton's armor broke out and
dashed forward to the Rhine near Koblenz on the 9th
Contact was established with General Hodges' First
Army units southeast of Remagen, and by 11 March
the Allied controlled the west bank of the Rhine from
Nijmegen in Holland to its junction with the Moselle
at Koblenz.

Once the Eifel sector had been mopped up, General
Patton was ready to assist the Seventh Army in reducing
the Saar pocket. General Eisenhower wrote me:

Tomorrow morning the XX Corps of Patton's Army begins a
local attack in the Trier area as a preliminary to the general attack
by Seventh Army on the 15th. So far as we can determine there is
not a single reserve division in this whole area. If we can get a
quick break-through, the advance should go very rapidly and success
in the region will multiply the advantage we have secured in
the bridgehead at Remagen. It will probably be a nasty business
breaking through the fortified lines, but once this is accomplished
losses should not be great and we should capture another big bag
of prisoners. I have given Seventh Army 14 divisions for their part
of the job, and XX Corps (Third Army) jumps off with four. Patton
will throw in another subsidiary effort from north to south across
the Moselle with about four to five divisions.

On 14 March General Patton established a bridgehead
across the Moselle, southwest of Koblenz. The
following day his troops lunged southward from the
Moselle bridgehead, other Third Army forces drove
east from Trier,and the Seventh Army attacked northward
between Saarbrucken and the Rhine. Despite
dense mine fields and the formidable Siegfried Line
fortifications, the Seventh gained steadily, pinning
downs strong enemy formations and leaving the Third
Army tanks free to cut to pieces the rear of the
German position. On 16 March a spearhead of the 4th
Armored Division broke through for a gain of 32
miles and seized two bridges across the Nahe River
south of the Moselle crumbled. Armored divisions
of the Third and Seventh Armies enveloped the
Saar, and the Rhine cities of Worms and Mainz fell to
our swift columns.

While pocketed German forces in the Saar were still
in process of being mopped up, Third Army infantry
of the Corps under Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy,
achieved a brilliant surprise by crossing the Rhine at
Oppenheim south of Mainz late on 22 March with
decidedly sketchy and improvised means. In two days
this bridgehead was expanded to a width of 15 miles,
and on the third day the 4th Armored Division broke
through the enemy lines to a depth of 27 miles, seizing
an undamaged bridge over the Main River. The
daring armored thrusts in the Saar had criss-crossed
and intermingled elements of the two armies. Under
the skillful direction of General Bradley and General
Devers, the Army commanders regrouped their mingled
corps and divisions without loss to the momentum
of the offensive.

--148--

The Knockout

In six weeks the combined efforts of the Allied
armies had achieved a major objective. The German
soil west of the Rhine had been cleared of all hostile
forces. The river itself had been forced in two fortuitous
crossings, and the freedom of action of the
German defense on the east bank was seriously curtailed.
General Eisenhower was now ready to launch
his offensive beyond the Rhine.

Several considerations governed the selection of the
area north of the Ruhr for the main effort. A drive in
this sector was the quickest means of denying what
vestiges remained of the once rich Ruhr industries to
the enemy. That stretch of the Rhine between
Emmerich and Wesel was one of the two best sites for
a forced crossing, and the Germans had brought up
only relatively inferior forces to oppose such an operation.
Once across that river the gently rolling terrain
north of the Ruhr was most suitable for mobile and
tank operations, the type of warfare it was desired to
force upon the enemy because of his shortages in
tanks, vehicles, and motor fuel.

After a heavy aerial and artillery preparation, the
Second British Army began an assault crossing of the
Rhine during the evening of 23 March. Next morning
the U.S. 17th and the 6th British Airborne Divisions
were dropped north and northeast of Wesel. British
troops crossing the river soon established contact
with the airborne forces. The U.S. Ninth Army
crossed between Wesel and Duisburg early on the
24th, meeting light to moderate resistance. Within
two days seven bridges had been built across the river
and the British-American bridgehead stretched 25
miles along the Rhine to a maximum depth of 6 miles.

General Eisenhower was with the Ninth when it
jumped off. He described the attack in a letter.

I have just finished a rapid tour of the battle front. Yesterday and
the day before I was with the Ninth Army to witness its jump-off
and the early stages of the Rhine crossing. Simpson performed in
his usual outstanding style. Our losses in killed, during the crossing
were 15 in one assault division and 16 in the other I stayed
up most of one night to witness the preliminary bombardment by
1,250 guns. It was an especially interesting sight because of the
fact that all the guns were spread out on a plain so that the flashes
from one end of the line to the other were all plainly visible. It
was real drumfire.

I have noted so many unusual and outstanding incidents in the
forward areas that it would almost weary you to tell you of the fine
performances of American and other troops. For example, the
Engineers of VII Corps laid a Treadway bridge across the Rhine in
10 hours and 11 minutes. While not actually under fire, this job
was done under battlefield conditions with all the necessary precautions
taken to prevent unusual damage by a sudden concentration
of enemy artillery fire. It was a brilliant performance.

By 25 March hard fighting in the Remagen area had
extended the bridgehead to a depth of 10 miles and a
length of over 30. The German High Command,
expecting an immediate drive on the Ruhr from this
direction, had concentrated strong forces of Army
Group "B" north of the Sieg River. To their great surprise,
General Hodges broke out of the bridgehead to
the southeast on 26 March, when his armor drove to
Limburg, seized a bridge over the Lahn River, and
raced along the super highway toward Frankfurt.
Other armored columns of the First Army, speeding
eastward as fast as 40 miles a day, reached Marbur
and Giessen by 28 March, and then swung northward
through the hill country west of Kassel. Troops of the
Third Army crossed the river at Mainz to reduce the
German pocket bypassed between Mainz and
Frankfurt while, to the east, other Third Army forces
drove on toward Kassel and the line of the Fulda River.
With solid contact between their advancing corps, the
First and Third Armies were now executing a massive
thrust to the northeast into the heart of Germany. The
complete rout of the German military establishment
was now under way.

In the sector of Field Marshal Montgomery's
Northern Army Group, the U.S. Ninth Army pressed
into the northwest section of the Ruhr. Still further to
the north, resistance on the right flank of the British
Second Army slackened considerably toward the end
of March, and armored troops broke through to
Dulmen. Meanwhile, on the left flank of the Second
Army, the enemy withdrew, and British units crossed
the Dutch border on a 30-miles front.

During the last week of March both of General
Dever's armies in the south crossed the Rhine. The
Seventh sent the XV Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen.
W.H. Haislip, across on a 15-mile front between
Gernsheim and Mannheim. Our troops took
Mannheim and advanced 25 miles east of the Rhine.
The II Corps of the First French Army crossed the
Rhine near Germersheim and established contact
with the Seventh Army south of Heidelberg. By 1
April, French troops had advanced 18 miles.

The magnitude of the offensive smothered resistance
all along the Western Front. The shattered condition
of the German transport system and the sustained
speed of the Allied advance prevented the
enemy from coordinating a defensive line in any sector.
He did offer bitter resistance at isolated points but
these were bypassed by the armored columns, leaving
pockets to be mopped up later. During the month of
March nearly 350,000 prisoners were taken on the
Western Front.

The entrance of the Fifteenth Army, under command
of Lt. Gen. L.T. Gerow, into the line of the 12th
Army Group on 30 March gave more freedom of
action to the First and Ninth Armies, enabling them to

--149--

--150/151--

increase the weight of the offensive into Germany.
Ninth Army tanks immediately broke out of the area
north of the Ruhr and swept eastward in a powerful
thrust toward Münster. On 1 April the enveloping
columns of these armies made contact west of
Paderborn, cutting off the Ruhr and a large area to the
south, in the largest pocket of envelopment in the history
of warfare.

Elements of 18 German divisions from the First
Parachute, Fifth Panzer, and Fifteenth Armies were
encircled in the skillful maneuver. Leaving strong
forces to contain and reduce this giant encirclement,
the First and Ninth Armies continued eastward toward
the line of the Weser. Spearheading the Allied offensive,
they headed for Leipzig and a prearranged junction
with the Soviet forces. There was no loss of
momentum, no respite for the enemy forces, and by
the end of the first week of April both armies had
crossed the Weser in the area north of Kassel.

On 6 April, General Eisenhower wrote me:

As you can see from the reports, our plans have been developing
almost in exact accordance with original conceptions. You
must expect, now, a period in which the lines on your map will
not advance as rapidly as they did during the past several weeks
because we must pause to digest the big mouthful that we have
we have swallowed in the Ruhr area. It should not take too long and, of
course, in the meantime, maintenance will be pushed to the limit
to support our next main thrust. My G-2 (Major General Strong of
the British Army) figures that there may be 150,000 German soldiers
left in the Ruhr but a number of these will change into civilian
clothes before we liquidate the whole thing. He is confident
however, that we will capture at least 100,000. (Actually 300,000
were captured.) The enemy has been making efforts to break out
of the area but our persistent policy of knocking out his communications
to the eastward, and his lack of mobility within the
pocket, both make it very difficult for him to launch a really concerted
attack. I am confident that he can do nothing about it.

The Ninth Army advance from the Weser to the Elbe
was featured by armored gains of 20 to30 miles a day
against little or no resistance. By mid-April our troops
were along the Elbe near Wittenberge and Magdeburg
and had established bridgeheads across the river. In
rear of the armored columns, the cities of Hanover
and Brunswick fell to Ninth Army infantry. Bypassing
Leipzig and strong resistance in the Harz Forest, the
First Army drove eastward to the Mulde Valley south
of Dessau.

While these extensive operations continued, the
battle progressed against the trapped Germans in the
Ruhr. With the Fifteenth Army holding the west face
of the pocket along the Rhine, and armor and infantry
of the Ninth and First Armies driving in from the
north, east, and south, the formidable enemy forces
were crushed in just 18 days. More than 300,000 prisoners
were taken in this unique victory, won far
behind our forward positions and squarely astride our
lines of communication.

Soon Leipzig and the Harz Mountains were in
American hands, and the Ninth and First Armies
closed on the line of the Elbe-Mulde, the forward
limit, which had been arranged with the Soviets. To
establish contact with our Allies from the Eastern
Front, First Army patrols pushed east of the Mulde to
Torgau, where the long-awaited juncture with the Red
Army occurred on 25 April.

In the north, the British Second Army advancing on
the Osnabrück-Bremen axis had crossed the Weser on
a broad front near Minden early in April and was at the
outskirts of Bremen by the middle of the month. From
their Weser crossings the British struck northward
toward Hamburg, reaching the Elbe southeast of the
city. The Canadians forced the Ijssel River and pressed
on through the Dutch towns, liberating the remaining
sections of eastern and northern Holland.

Far to the south, the Third Army, after capturing
Mühlhausen, Gotha, and Erfut, crossed the Saale
River and turned southeast toward the mountains of
Czechoslovakia and the Danube Valley. This advance
was designed to establish firm contact with the Soviet
forces in Austria and to prevent any effective reorganization
of the enemy remnants in mountainous
regions to the south. On the right, the Seventh Army
encountered bitter resistance in Nürnberg, but quickly
captured the city and then swung south into the
Bavarian plain. On the first of May the Third Army was
advancing into Czechoslovakia on a hundred-mile
front southeast of Asch; along the Danube other elements
had driven 20 miles into Austria. The Seventh
Army had taken Munich, birthplace of the Nazi party,
and was sweeping southward toward the Inn River.
Along the upper Rhine, the First French Army captured
Karlsruhe and Stuttgart in turn and proceeded
with the reduction of enemy forces caught in the
Black Forest. By the first of May the French had
cleared the Swiss border west of Lake Constance and
were driving into western Austria alongside the
Seventh Army.

In northern Germany, the British Second Army, reinforced
by the XVIII American Corps under Maj. Gen.
Matthew B. Ridgway, broke out from the Elbe River
late in April and reached the Baltic on 2 May. This
action established contact with Soviet forces at
Wismar and cut off the Danish Peninsula. Further
resistance on this front was hopeless. On 5 May, the
German commander surrendered all forces in northwest
Germany, Holland, and Denmark.

Along the Danube, the Third Army continued the
advance into Austria and entered Linz on 5 May. Next
day Pilsen fell to our forces in Czechoslovakia. General
Patch's Seventh Army swept across the Inn on a wide
front and drove 40 miles to capture Salzburg and
Hitler's stronghold at Berchtesgaden. Other Seventh
Army troops who had taken Innsbruck drove through
the Brenner Pass to establish contact with the Fifth
Army at Vipiteno. Since its landing on the Riviera, the
Seventh Army had advanced an average of more than
3 miles a day against what had been the most formidable

--152--

army in the world. At noon on 6 May, Army
Group "G", comprising all German forces in Austria,
surrendered unconditionally to our Sixth Army
Group, just 11 months after the landing in Normandy.

The powerful Wehrmacht had disintegrated under
the combined Allied blows, and the swift advances
into the mountains of Austria and Bohemia had prevented
the establishment of an inner fortress.
Surrounded on all fronts by chaos and overwhelming
defeat, the emissaries of the German government surrendered
to the Allies at Reims on 7 May 1945, all
land, sea, and air forces of the Reich.

Order of Battle European Theater of Operations (as of 7 May 1945)

(The order of battle of our Allies is not shown below Army level,
except where American forces are under their operational control.)

* Exercised operational control over Fifteenth Air Force shown under Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

--153/154--

Victory Over Japan

The Road to China

Of all the battle fronts of the global war, the situation
in East Asia two years ago was the bleakest for the
United Nations. In seeking to capitalize on the preoccupation
of the Western Powers in Europe and the
sneak attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the
Japanese had established an immense perimeter of
conquest on the Far East. By July 1942 it extended
more than halfway across the Pacific, southward
almost to Australia, and westward to the mountain
barriers of the India-Burma front.The advance eastward
of the Japanese had been halted in the critical
battles of Midway and the Coral Sea. But Japan still
held tremendous areas replete with the natural
resources essential to the conduct of modern warfare.

So far, our advance back over these areas taken by
the Japanese in their initial stride had been slow and
painful. It seemed to many Americans that if we had
to repeat again and again the bloody struggles for
Guadalcanal and the Papuan Coast of New Guinea by
what was popularly termed "island hopping," the decision
in the war with Japan was distant many years.
Army and Navy commanders were well aware of the
difficulties and paucity of means. nevertheless, we
had undertaken offensive operations in the Pacific and
Far East with only the small forces then available
because it was imperative that the Japanese be halted
and placed on the defensive.

Japan's rush into Burma had isolated China except
for the thin line of air supply over the 500 miles of the
Himalayan Hump between Assam, India, and the
Yunnan plateau. The Japanese had attacked China at
the most propitious time for carrying out their dreams
of conquest of Asia and Oceania. In the face of almost
a complete lack of war matériel, China had refused to
submit. But her condition by the early summer of
1943 had grown truly desperate.

China's most critical needs were in trucks and
rolling stock, artillery, tanks, and other heavy equipment.
It was impossible to fly this matériel over the
Himalayas in the essential quantities. In fact, except as
it supplied the american Fourteenth Air Force commanded
by General Chennault with gasoline, bombs,
and ammunition, the Hump air route at that time gave
China little material assistance. If the armies and government
of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had been
finally defeated, Japan would have been lefty free to
exploit the tremendous resources of China without
harassment. It might have made it possible when the
United States and Britain had finished the job in
Europe,and assaulted the Japanese home islands, for
the government to fleet o China, and continue the
war on a great and rich land mass.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff recognized that
Germany had to be defeated first and that the quickest
approach to Japan was across the Pacific, spearheaded
by our Navy. Nevertheless, they believed that China
must be given sufficient support to keep her in th3e war.

Accordingly, when this critical phase of the global
war was discussed at Casablanca in January 1943, the
Combined Chiefs directed that preparations be made to
reestablish surface communications to China and to
step up the flow of supply over the Hump even though
at that time Allied resources were being heavily taxed to
bring the North African campaign to a successful conclusion
and to extend control over the Mediterranean.
We knew they would be much more heavily taxed as we
gathered our strength for the invasion of France.

At the TRIDENT Conference in Washington four
months later the position of the Allies in Asia was
reconsidered, and it was agreed that top priority must
be given the Air Transport Command to increase the
capacity of the aerial route over the Hump to 10,000
tons a month. It was also resolved that vigorous action
must be taken to begin a Burma campaign in the fall
at the end of the 1943 monsoon.

Three months later in the QUADRANT Conference
plans were laid in greater detail to realize the maximum
effect that could be obtained in Asia with the
resources then available.The penetration into Burma
from India was a task of unusual difficulty.
Communications between the port of Calcutta and
Assam were limited to one railroad which changes
from broad to meter gauge and which must cross the
sweeping Brahmaputra River in ferries because the
monsoon floods make bridging impossible. Nowhere
along the India-Burma frontier is there an easy west-to-east
passage. The jungles that cover the barrier of the
Himalayan foothills are malaria-ridden, infested with
acute dysenteries and endemic typhus.

The United States and Great Britain had insufficient
landing vessels even to give assurance of the
success to the operations planned for the
Mediterranean and Western Europe. It was impossible
at that time to mount an amphibious attack on
Burma from the south.

--155--

--156--

Operation CAPITAL

At the QUADRANT Conference the Southeast Asia
Command was created under Admiral, the Lord Louis
Mountbatten. Lt. Gen. Stilwell, who commanded the
China-Burma-India U.S. Theater, was made his deputy.
All the resources the United States could make available
to him were allocated for the task for reestablishing
land communications to China. It was urgently
desired to furnish greater Allied resources in the East
than were allotted. They simply were not available.

In the new command structure the Combined
Chiefs of Staff continued to exercise general jurisdiction
over operations in Southeast Asia and over the
allocation of American and British resources.
Operations in the Chinese theater of war were under
the command of the Generalissimo, with Stilwell as
his Chief of Staff. All Royal Air Force and Army Air
Forces combat strength on the Burma front, including
the U.S. Tenth Air Force, was formed into the Eastern
Air Command under Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer.

It was decided that an offensive in North Burma
should be undertaken in the winter of 1943 and 1944,
and that the Ledo Road from Assam, then under construction
by American engineers, should be extended
to the old Burma Road at Mongyu as rapidly as the
offensive operations progressed. It was also decided
to build a pipe line from Calcutta to Assam and another
one paralleling the Ledo Road. These lines would
greatly increase the flow of motor fuels to China.

At the same conference it was decided to enlarge the
capacity of the Hump route to 20,000 tons a month.
The plan for the bombing of the Japanese Islands by
B-29's operating out of China was reviewed and
accepted at the QUADRANT Conference. The air plan
for the reduction of Japan, adopted at the conference,
foresaw the establishment of superfortress bases in the
Pacific to subject Japan to the same devastating air
attack that was to prepare Germany for assault by our
ground forces. The target of the air route and new
overland supply route to China established at this first
Quebec conference, was 85,000 tons per month of
general stores and 54,000 tons of petroleum products,
which would move via the pipe line.

These decisions regarding the Ledo Road, the
increase of Hump tonnage, the construction of pipe
lines, and the campaign in North Burma generally presented
a most difficult and trying problem to the
Combined Chiefs of Staff. Ocean tonnage, transport
planes for possible airborne operations to break the
stalemate in Italy, an increase in the inflow of troops
into the United Kingdom for OVERLORD, assistance
for General MacArthur's campaign in the Southwest
Pacific, and other urgent requirements all had to be
taken into consideration in the light of our limitations
in resources. Sacrifices would be required somewhere
but if made at the wrong place they would cost the
lives of Allied soldiers and delay final victory.

Since the operations in Burma could not begin until
the monsoon had ended in Assam and the floods had
receded, the Allied staff chiefs with the President and
Prime Minister had the opportunity to meet with
Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo in November 1943 before
our projected offensive began. At the Cairo
Conference the Combined Chiefs of Staff made further
efforts to find the resources to increase the scope
of the Burma campaign by adding amphibious operations
in the Bay of Bengal. These resources were available
nowhere in this world unless we abandoned the
great basic decision to close with the German enemy
in Western Europe in 1944. The alternative would
have permitted the Japanese to exploit their prizes of
conquest in the Pacific islands. It was determined,
however, that by means of the projected Allied attacks
across the India-Burma frontier, it would be possible
to drive the Japanese from Northern Burma and
achieve the objective of reopening surface communications
to China.

The preliminaries to these operations began late in
October just prior to the conference at Cairo and
Teheran. The Chinese 22d and 38th Divisions moved
from their forward positions in front of the advancing
Ledo Road into the Hukawng Valley. These troops had
been trained in the center established at Ramgarh,
India, through the energy and wisdom of General
Stilwell and with the approval of the Generalissimo.

In February the Chinese advances down the
Hukawng Valley were joined by a specially trained
American infantry combat team known as the GALAHAD
Force [aka "Merrill's Marauders"] commanded by Brig. Gen. Frank D.
Merrill. These troops had been gathered in a call for
volunteers that went to all United States jungle trained
and veteran infantry units in the Pacific and in the
Western Hemisphere. Marching over the most difficult
terrain under intolerable weather conditions, the
Chinese and American forces virtually destroyed the
Japanese 18th Division, which had captured
Singapore in the Japanese advance. In May 1944 they
fought their way into the airfield at Mytikyina, the key
to Northern Burma.

During most of this campaign the Japanese were
effectively blocked from reinforcing Norther Burma
through the Irrawaddy Valley by columns of seasoned
British and Indian jungle troops, commanded by the
late Maj. Gen. Orde C. Wingate. These columns were
known as long-range penetration groups [aka "Chindits"] Some of
them marched from India to establish their strangleholds
on Japanese communications; others were
taken in by glider in an airborne operation directed by
U.S. Col. Philip G. Cochran, who commanded a specially
organized composite air group known as Air
Commandos. While General Stilwell's forces were
advancing on Mytikyina, groups of the Generalissimo
commanded by Marshal Wei Li Haung crossed the
Salween River from the east.

--157--

Patrols of the two forces finally met at Tengchung in
the summer of 1944, establishing the first thin hold on
Northern Burma.

During the fall of 1943 the Japanese, anticipating the
attack in Burma, had been building their strength for a
counteroffensive to prevent the reestablishment of surface
communications with China. Japanese forces
attacked eastward across the Salween in the Lungling
area and were met and stopped by the Chinese in time
to permit completion of the road from Ledo. Another
strong Japanese force struck toward India while the
Allied operations were in progress in an effort to seize
the large British base at Imphal and sever the Bengal-Assam
Railroad below the bases on which Hump air
transportation and General Stilwell's operations were
dependent. By April 1944 Imphal was cut off and the
Japanese threatened Dimapur on the railroad. British
and Indian troops flown to the sector met the attack,
turned it back, and reestablished contact with the
Indian divisions in the Imphal plain. After heavy and
prolonged fighting, the hostile divisions were dispersed
and cut up with heavy losses.At the same time,
British and Japanese troops in the Arakan to the south
were engaging in see-saw fighting along the coast of
the Bay of Bengal.

The reentry into Burma was the most ambitious
campaign yet waged on the end of an airborne supply
line. From the first advance by the Chinese into the
Hukawng Valley in October until after the fall of
Myitkyina town the next August there were at all
times between 25,000 and 100,000 troops involved in
fighting and dependent largely or entirely on food,
equipment, and ammunition that could be air-supplied,
either by parachute, free drop, or air-landed.

The air supply was maintained by troop carrier
squadrons, British and American, commanded by
Brig. Gen. William D. Old, under the direction of
General Stratemeyer's Eastern Air COmmand. Night
and day troop carrier C-46's and 47's shuttled from
numerous bases and air strips in the Brahmaputra
Valley to points of rendezvous with the Allied ground
columns in the Burma jungles. Each trip had to be
flown over one or more of the steep spines which the
Himalayas shove southward along the India-Burma
frontier to establish one of the most formidable barriers
to military operations in the world. The troop carrier
squadrons at the height of the campaign averaged
230 hours of flying time for each serviceable plane a
month for three months. The normal average monthly
flying time is 120 hours.

At two critical stages of the campaign the troop carrier
squadrons assisted by Air Transport Command
planes made major troop movements in a matter of
hours and days that would have required weeks and
months by surface transport.

The first was the movement of British and Indian
troops to meet the threat on the Bengal-Assam
Railroad at Dimapur. The second was the movement
of two Chinese divisions, the 14th and 50th, from
Yunnan, China, across the Hump to the troop carrier
base at Sookerating, in Assam, India. The operation
was accomplished in just eight days. The Chinese
troops were picked up by Air Transport Command
planes in China and landed at the troop carrier field
where they were entirely refitted, armed, and flown
to a staging area in the Hukawng from where they
entered the battle for Myitkyina.

Only air supply was the Burma campaign at all
possible. The jungle covered ridges between India and
Burma have effectively resisted the advance of civilizations.
They are inhabited by mountain tribes of
Kachins, Chins, and the headhunting Nagas. Before
United States Engineers accomplished the Herculean
job of driving through the Ledo Road, now known as the
Stilwell Road, across the mountains and through the
jungles, a road from the Brahmaputra to the Irrawaddy
Valley was considered an impossibility.

Fall of Burma

The mission that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had given
General Stilwell in Asia was one of the most difficult
of the war. He was out at the end of the thinnest supply
line of all; the demands of the war in Europe and
the Pacific campaign, which were clearly the most
vital to final victory, exceeded our resources in many
items of matériel and equipment and all but absorbed
everything else we had. General Stilwell could have
only what was left and that was extremely thin. He
had a most difficult physical problem of great distances,
almost impassable terrain, widespread disease
and unfavorable climate; he faced an extremely difficult
political problem and his purely military problem
of opposing large numbers of enemy with few
resources was unmatched in any theater.

Nevertheless General Stilwell sought with amazing
vigor to carry out his mission exactly as it had been
stated. His great efforts brought a natural conflict of
personalities. He stood, as it were, the middle-man
between two great governments other than his own,
with slender resources and problems somewhat overwhelming
in their complexity. As a consequence it
was deemed necessary in the fall of 1944 to relieve
General Stilwell of the burden of his heavy responsibilities
in Asia and give him a respite from attempting
the impossible.

At the same time it became obvious the mission of
reestablishing communications with China would be
accomplished, and as the future objectives of the
forces in Southeast Asia and China were to grow continually
more divergent, it appeared advisable to make
a clear division of the two theaters. Accordingly, the
American administrative area of China-Burma-India
was separated into the India-Burma and the China theaters.

--158--

Lt. Gen. Daniel I. Sultan, who had been General
Stilwell's deputy, was given command of the India-Burma
theater. Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, formerly
Chief of the War Department Strategical
Planners and later a member of Admiral
Mountbatten's staff, was appointed commander of our
forces in China, succeeding General Stilwell as the
Generalissimo's Chief of Staff.

No American officer had demonstrated more clearly
his knowledge of the strength and weakness of the
Japanese forces than General Stilwell and the steps
necessary to defeat them in Asia. He was brought back
to the United States to reorient the training of the
Army Ground Forces for the war against Japan. Then
after the death of General Buckner on Okinawa he was
returned to the field to command the U.S. Tenth Army.

The Burma campaign continued with intensity during
the monsoon season of 1944. Chinese, American,
and British troops were then disposed along the
Chindwin River north of Kalewa and from the upper
Irrawaddy to Lungling. It was planned to drive southward
through Central Burma to Mandalay, and
Admiral Mountbatten prepared for operation DRACULA
to seize Rangoon amphibiously from the south. At
the close of the monsoon, Chinese, American, and
British troops under the immediate command of
General Sultan advanced southward astride the
Irrawaddy, captured Shwegu in early November, and

Burma Campaign

--159--

by December had cleared the projected trace of the
supply road to Bhamo.

The Japanese in Burma had never recovered from
General Stilwell's thrusts and from the losses inflicted
by British and Indian forces on their 15th, 31st, and
33d Divisions in their abortive effort to sever the
Bengal-Assam Railroad. As fast as the combat forces
moved ahead, United States Engineers, commanded
by Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Pick, shoved the road forward
behind them, operating their bulldozers so far forward
that they were frequently under fire. On 28
January 1945 a convoy of American trucks and
matériel from India crossed the Burma-China frontier.
The Stilwell Road was open.

In Western Burma the British broke south through
Tiddim across the Chindwin against Japanese delaying
actions. Southward in the Arakan, British operations
cleared the Kaladan River delta on the Arakan Coast
and provided air strips at Akyab and on Ramree Island.

The Japanese retreat in Burma was in full swing by
the end of January 1945. General MacArthur's successive
landings in the Philippines and United States fleet
operations in the China Sea had cut the Japanese supply
line to Burma. In mid-February, a British column
crossed the Irrawaddy near Pagan and drove to
Meiktila. The seizure of this road and rail center with
its airfields undermined the whole Japanese position
in Central Burma. In the meantime, other British-Indian
forces were closing on Mandalay from the
north and west. Japanese trapped on Mandalay from the
out against the British until 21 March. Forty days later
British airborne troops descended along the western
shore of the Rangoon River south of the port and
assault troops came ashore the following day. The
Japanese had already fled Rangoon and the British
forces entered on 3 May. The port facilities were captured
in good condition.

The Burma campaign had all but ended. A few
Japanese units were able to withdraw eastward into
Thailand and into the Moulmein area of Southern
Burma, but thousands of the enemy were cut off in
isolated pockets with little hope of escape. Admiral
Mountbatten reported the fighting had already cost
Japan 300,000 casualties of which 97,000 were
counted dead.

The Asiatic operations had been maintained at the
end of the most precarious supply lines in history. The
efforts of the United States service forces to strengthen
them were prodigious. United States port battalions
at Calcutta worked in intolerable heat and humidity
with native labor weakened by disease, heat, and
famine. Despite these handicaps, they established
records exceeding those of every other military port
in the world for quick unloading and turn-around of
our ships. At the same time, the capacity of the tiny
Bengal-Assam Railroad was more than doubled by
American railway battalions which refused to let the
disease and heat of the steaming Brahmaputra Valley
dissipate their energies as they have weakened white
men and brown for centuries. During 1943 and 1944
the flow of United States arms and matériel through
Calcutta and up the valley had become great enough
to support not only the Herculean job of building the
Ledo Road and destroying the Japanese forces in its
path, but to increase steadily the capacity of the
Himalayan air route and the flow of arms to the undernourished
armies of China.

Reverse in China

In the latter stages of the Burma campaign,
American troops of the MARS force, a brigade of two
regiments which succeeded the GALAHAD force,
were flow to China together with two of the Chinese
divisions that had been fighting in Burma.

By January 1945, Hump cargo had been increased
to the amazing rate of 46,000 tons a month.This vital
and hazardous traffic stands as one of the great logistical
accomplishments of the war against Japan. It
alone made possible the indispensable support
which General Chennault's Fourteenth Air Force was
able to give the Chinese armies and the attacks by
China-based Superfortresses on Japan's home islands.
In June of this year when the Marianas bases had
been sufficiently developed, the China-based B-29's
were sent to the Pacific where they could be more
easily supplied.

In May 1944, however, the Japanese had launched a
strong drive southward from Tung Ting Lake in Hunan
Province. In the late summer they began a complementary
drive west from Canton. These salients
joined near the American air base at Kweilin severing
unoccupied China, and overran seven of the principal
bases from which the Fourteenth Air Force had been
throwing its weight against Shipping in the China Sea.
In April 1945, the Japanese drove out of Paoching
against our important air base at Chihkiang.
Supported by the Fourteenth Air Force, Chinese
troops slowed, stopped, then threw back this
Japanese column with heavy losses. The offensives in
China were the most serious the Japanese were able
to mount in 1944 and 1945.

By the spring of this year the impact of the smashing
attack across the Pacific islands had been felt deep
in Asia. Fearing for the safety of their homeland, the
Japanese had begun to withdraw large forces from
South and Central China. Behind them Chinese troops
were applying every pressure their present strength
would permit. Under General Wedemeyer, American
officers in increasing numbers were helping speed
the retraining and reequipping of Chinese soldiers
who had been fighting the Japanese for eight long
years. The War Department made available to him two

--160--

Japanese Operations Against U.S. Airfields
Japanese Holdings in July 1944

--161--

of the Army commanders who had helped defeat the
German Wehrmacht, General Truscott of the Fifth
Army in Italy and General Simpson of the Ninth Army.
At the same time the Air Forces in China were reorganized,
the 10th Air Force from India was moved into
China and both the 10th and 14th were placed under
the general direction of General Stratemeyer. While this
reorganization was in progress, General Chennault,
who had commanded the original American Volunteer
Group of "Flying Tigers" and then became the first
commander of the 14th Air Force, asked to be relieved.
The War Department granted his request and name
Maj. Gen. Charles B. Stone to succeed him.

General Stilwell had been able to provide some
training and equipment for 35 Chinese divisions in his
training centers in Yunnan. Under the direction of the
Generalissimo, General Wedemeyer was continuing
this mission with full vigor and greatly increased
resources now moving over the road from India. We
were determined that when the final battle of Japan
was fought the armies of the Emperor would find no
comfort anywhere on earth.

Order of Battle U.S. Forces in China Theater (As of 14 August 1945)

Unit

Commander

Location

Headquarters, U.S. Forces, China Theater

Lt. Gen. A.C.Wedemeyer

Chungking, China

U.S. Army Air Forces, China Theater

Lt. Gen. G.E. Stratemeyer

Chungking, China

Tenth Air Force

Maj. Gen. H.C. Davidson

Liuchow, China

Fourteenth Air Force

Maj. Gen. C.B. Stone, 3d

Kunming, China

Unremitting Pressure

It had always been the concept of the United States
Chiefs of Staff that Japan could best be defeated by a
series of amphibious attacks across the far reaches of
the Pacific. Oceans are formidable barriers, but for the
nation enjoying naval superiority they become high-roads
of invasion.

Japan's attack on our fleet at Pearl Harbor gave her
a tremendous but, nevertheless, temporary advantage.
The Japanese had reckoned without the shipyards of
America and the fighting tradition of the United States
Navy. Even before parity with the Japanese fleet had
been regained, the Navy successfully maintained communications
with Australia and had undertaken limited
offensives in the Solomons to halt the enemy
advance. A desperate courage stopped the Japanese
before Australia in the now historic battle of the Coral
Sea and then shortly afterward utterly smashed the
Japanese advance toward the United States itself in the
decisive action at Midway.

The broad strategic allocation of resources among
the theaters was controlled by the Combined Chiefs
of Staff, but the actual control of operations in the
Pacific had been retained by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff.
At the Casablanca Conference, the Combined Chiefs
agreed that Japan must be prohibited from further
expansion and from consolidating and exploiting her
current holdings. This resolution was agreed upon
even though we were at the very moment having
great difficulty in concentrating sufficient resources to
defeat the European Axis.

It has been declared axiomatic that a nation cannot
successfully wage war on two fronts. With a full
appreciation of the difficulties and hazards involved,
we felt compelled to wage a war not only on two
front, but on many fronts. Thus we arrived at the
concept of global war in which the vast power of
American democracy was to be deployed all over
the earth.

At the TRIDENT Conference of May 1943 in
Washington when the specific strategy of the global
war was conceived, it was determined to step up the
pace of the advance on Japan. Then a few months
later, in August 1943, at the QUADRANT Conference
in Quebec, the specific routes of the advance on Japan
were laid out. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was directed
to continue his operations up the New Guinea coast
to reach the Philippines by the fall of 1944.
Operations in the Gilberts,the Marshalls, and the
Marianas were agreed to, and it was forecast that by
the spring of 1945 we would be able to secure a lodgment
in the Ryukyus on the threshold of the Japanese homeland.

Admiral King was confident that somewhere during
these advances, probably during the Marianas or the
Philippine campaigns, the United States fleets would
meet and decisively defeat the Japanese Navy. No
long-range military forecast could have been more accurate.

At the QUADRANT Conference General Arnold proposed
an air plan for the softening of Japan. It was
later approved and carried into execution. It called for
the establishment of bases in China, in the Marianas,
and other Pacific islands, from which would operate
the huge B-29 Superfortresses then only just going
into production.

--162--

Pacific Pincers

At the turn of the year 1943 Army forces in the
South Pacific area were added to General MacArthur's
strategic command. It was the intention of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff to maintain the initiative, advancing by
amphibious flanking actions on the Philippines and
the Japanese Islands from the south and from the east.
The advance across the tremendous reaches of the
Central Pacific was placed under the command of Admiral
Chester W. Nimitz. There were two axes of the operations
on the southern flank--one in New Guinea commanded
by Lt.Gen. Walter Krueger, the other in the
Solomons under Admiral William F. Halsey.

It was General MacArthur's intention to proceed by
a series of envelopments up the coast of New Guinea
and into the Philippines. We now enjoyed superiority
both on the sea and in the air. He was therefore able
to land his troops where the Japanese were weakest
and confine their stronger forces in pockets from
which, because of incredibly difficult terrain and our
air and sea superiority, they could never break out. As
a result there were at the time of surrender hundreds
of thousands of Japanese troops isolated in the jungles
of the Pacific islands, dying on the vine and of no further
use to their Emperor. As General MacArthur
reported toward the end of 1944:

The enemy garrisons which have been bypassed in the
Solomons and New Guinea represent no menace to current or
future operations. Their capacity for organized offensive effort has
passed.The various processes of attrition will eventually account
for their final disposition. The actual time of their destruction is of
little or no importance and their influence as a contributing factor
to the war is already negligible. The actual process of their immediate
date destruction by assault methods would unquestionably
involve heavy loss of life without adequate compensating strategic advantages.

Even with the intense preoccupation in the campaigns
in Europe during the past two years, this great
nation had been able steadily to increase the resources
available in the Pacific until at the moment of German
collapse General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz were
established on the threshold of the Japanese homeland
and the industries and cities of Japan were crumbling
under our aerial bombardment. The U.S. Navy
dominated the Pacific. The Commonwealth
Government, under President Osmeña, had been
reestablished in power and in residence in the Philippines.

On 1 July 1943, General MacArthur had four
American divisions and six Australian divisions under
his control. His air force had less than 150 heavy
bombers. Admiral Nimitz had nine Army and Marine
divisions. Yet in the spring of 1945 these two commanders
were ejecting the Japanese from the
Philippines and the Ryukyus--already on the home
stretch to Japan.

Following the completion of the extremely difficult
Buna campaign late in June 1943, difficult because of
the paucity of facilities and the character of the terrain,
two regimental combat teams landed on
Woodlark and Kiriwina Islands off the eastern tip of
New Guinea. The operation was small but it was typical
of the general method of the offensive in the
Southwest Pacific. Deceived by feints, the Japanese
were taken by surprise. Airfields were quickly established
on these two islands, from which effective support
could be provided for the operations which were
to follow, and which permitted the rapid transit of
fighter aircraft, if necessary, between the Solomons
and New Guinea.

The capture of New Georgia Island with its important
Munda airfield was accomplished by Maj. Gen.
Oscar W.Griswold's XIV Corps. The first landing in
force was made 30 June on nearby Rendova Island.
Japanese ground reaction was slight, but in the air the
enemy tried hard to disrupt the landing. The next day
Marine 155-mm guns on Rendova were shelling
Munda airdrome six miles across the water. Elements
of 37th and 43d Divisions then landed on New
Georgia enveloping the western end of the island.
After our forces were reinforced by troops of the 25th
Division, Munda was captured on 5 August. Bypassing
the strongly held island of Kolombangara, the XIV
Corps had captured Vella Lavella by 9 October.

General MacArthur reduced Salamaua with an
Australian force which advanced overland from the
west and an American regimental combat team which
made an amphibious landing south of the town. On 4
September, while the Japanese were still resisting at
Salamaua, an Australian force landed a few miles east
of Lae. The next day, supported by air and screened by
smoke, a U.S. Parachute regiment dropped to seize
the airdrome at Nadzab, 19 miles northwest of the
town. This daring move permitted the airborne movement
to Nadzab of an Australian division, which then
participated with their forces to the east in a concentric
attack on Lae. After difficult fighting the town was
occupied on 16 September.

Salamaua had fallen five days previously. General
MacArthur then moved quickly toward Finschhafen.
Employing mostly Australian forces, he occupied the
town on 2 October. By February 1944 the Huon
Peninsula was completely in our hands. During these
operations and those which followed, extensive air
attacks were maintained against the enemy's supply
lines, barges, and airfields, contributing materially to
the success of the ground operations.

Meantime, New Zealand troops occupied two
islands in the Treasury Group of the northern
Solomons late in October. Preceded by diversionary
landings in northwest Choiseul, the 3d Marine
Division of Lt. Gen. A.A. Vandegrift's I Marine
Amphibious Corps landed on 1 November at

--163--

The Great Ocean

Here are the broadest water distances of Earth. The short route to Japan
across the top of the world was blocked by weather. So the Army and
Navy were compelled to step their way over the Equator to the down-under
land of Australia and New Guinea and back up to the Philippines
and the Ryukyus. Vast as the Pacific Ocean is, it became the broad highway
for American invasion forces when the Navy drove the remnants of
the defeated Japanese fleet back to their harbors after the battle of the Philippines.

--164/165--

Empress Augusta Bay in western Bougainville. This
permitted the establishment of a naval base and
three airfields within fighter range of the enemy concentrations
at Rabaul, 235 miles distant. From these
airfields the remaining Japanese installations in the
Solomons could more extensively be neutralized by
Maj. Gen. Nathan F.Twining's Thirteenth Air Force,
thus obviating the immediate necessity of conducting
a campaign to annihilate the enemy or to complete
the capture of the islands. On 11 November
elements of the 37th Division entered the line, and
on 15 December command of the beachhead passed
to our XIV Corps, which had been reinforced by the
Americal Division. Meanwhile a naval task force
under Admiral Halsey had smothered Japanese air
and naval power at Rabaul.

In the Central Pacific Area the primary mission of
the Army command under Lt. Gen. Robert C.
Richardson, Jr., was the training of units en route to
the combat zones further south and west. Amphibious
and jungle training centers were established under
battle-tested instructors in the Hawaiian Islands. The
effectiveness of this training was demonstrated in
every area of the Pacific Ocean.

In the fall of 1943 a series of operations was initiated
which, less than a year later, had given us mastery
of the Pacific. Attacks directed against the enemy
along several axes forced him to deploy his relatively
inferior air strength over a wide area, without sufficient
strength at critical points. The vast sea area
favored the employment of superior American naval
strength. The small islands were not suitable for the
employment of large Japanese ground forces.

The first step was the seizure of the Gilbert Islands,
designated operation GALVANIC. Preluded by attacks
by carrier task forces on Marcus and key islands in the
Marshalls, Baker, Nukufetu, and Nanumea Islands
were occupied by United States forces at the beginning
of September. Early in October, Wake was heavily
bombarded. After a preparatory naval and air bombardment
by both marine and Navy planes and Maj.
Gen. Willis H.Hale's Seventh Air Force, the invasion
of the Gilberts began on 21 November. The 2d
Marine Division landed on Tarawa. A combat team of
the 27th Division landed on Makin. The Jap fought
stubbornly on both islands. the larger enemy force
on Tarawa made the operation difficult and costly for
our troops. Abemama to the south was seized without opposition.

Southwest Attack

--166--

These operations opened a phase of warfare new to
most of our troops. The enemy was concentrated
within restricted areas, heavily fortified in pillboxes,
and protected by mines and beach obstacles. Landing
forces faced intense cross-fires. The enemy could be
dislodged only by shattering bombardment and powerful
hand-to-hand infantry assault. Amphibious tractors
proved to be one of the effective assault
weapons. They could be floated beyond the range of
shore batteries, and driven over the fringing reefs onto and
up the beaches.

From the Gilberts, Admiral Nimitz turned to operation
FLINTLOCK-the seizure of several atolls in the
Marshall Islands. On 31 January 1944, after two days
of intense air and naval bombardment, the 7th
Division, veteran of Attu, landed on the southern
islands of Kwajalein Atoll, while the 4th Marine
Division attacked the northern tip at Namur and Roi.
Theses divisions were part of the V Marine Amphibious
COrps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Holland M. Smith. By
8 February all resistance had ceased. General
Richardson wrote me after a flight to the Marshalls:

As a result of the air, naval, and artillery bombardment, the
scene at Kwajalein was one of great devastation. The destruction
was complete. Upon approaching it from the lagoon side, it gave
the appearance of no-man's land in World War I and was even
greater, I think, than that of Betio on Tarawa. With the exception
of rubble left by concrete structures, there were no buildings
standing. All those which had been made of any other material
except concrete had been completely burned or destroyed. The
result was that there were practically no stores left except a few
packages of rice and a little clothing and ammunition scattered
here and there.

Majuro, with its excellent naval anchorage, was also
occupied. Then after heavy attacks by carrier planes,
a combat team of the 27th Division and a Marine combat
team landed on Eniwetok Atoll on 19 February
and completed its capture on 22 February. Control of
the Marshalls enabled the interdiction by air of the
enemy naval base at Truk until the advance into the
Carolines could definitely isolate it. Truk also came
under attack by Thirteenth Air Force B-24's based in
the Admiralties.

Concurrent with these moves were operations in
the Southwest against the western end of New Britain,
to establish control of Vitiaz and Dampier Straits. On
15 December 1943 a reinforced cavalry regiment landed
on three beaches in the Arawe area. The airdrome
on Cape Gloucester was a desirable link in the chain
of bases necessary to permit the air forces to pave the

--167--

way for further advances. During a period of weeks
the area was subjected to intensive aerial bombardment
and on 26 December the 1st Marine Division
landed and 4 days later captured the airdrome. By mid-March
joint operations of the Marines and the Army's
Arawe Force had secured western New Britain. While
this fighting was in progress General MacArthur's
advance westward continued. On 2 January 1944 a
regimental combat team of the 32d Division made a
jump of 110 miles to land near Saidor, on the north
coast of New Guinea, and by 7 January an airstrip was
in use.

The Admiralty Islands, lying west of the Bismarck
Archipelago, were strategically important because of
their airfields and harbor. An operation was originally
scheduled for April 1944, but on 29 February General
MacArthur accompanied advance elements of the 1st
Cavalry Division, transported in Vice Admiral Thomas
C. Kinkaid's Seventh Fleet destroyers and high-speed
transports to reconnoiter Los Negros Island. He was
prepared to follow in force if the situation warranted.
Little opposition was found, and the remainder of the
division was committed. Momote airdrome was captured,
and the beachhead secured after a series of
fanatical counterattacks. During the remainder of
March and the early part of April, the occupation of
Manus and the adjacent islands was completed.

The next move to Hollandia and Aitape on 22 April
involved a leapfrog advance westward of more than
400 miles. Since the landings were beyond the effective
range of Army fighters, air support was provided
by naval carriers. At Hollandia were located three
excellent Jap airfields, and Humboldt Bay was suitable
as an advanced naval and supply base. The airfields
were found to be hard to reach overland, so General
MacArthur occupied Aitape and based fighters on the

--168--

airstrip there. Three main landings were made by
troops of the 24th, 32d, and 41st Divisions of Lt. Gen.
Robert L. Eichelberger's I Corps, one just east of
Aitape, one in Humboldt Bay, and one in Tanahmerah
Bay. The Jap was taken by surprise; fewer than 5,000
of his troops were in the entire Hollandia area. By 30
April airfields there were in our hands. General
Krueger's Sixth Army Headquarters moved into
Hollandia 6 July 1944; General MacArthur brought his
headquarters up from Brisbane on 8 September 1944.
On this same date General Eichelberger was assigned
to command the newly activated Eighth Army with
headquarters also at Hollandia.

The Hollandia-Aitape operation cut off more than
50,000 Japanese troops to the eastward. The advance
westward was continued in mid-May when elements
of the 41st Division made an unopposed landing near
Arara. A few days later a regiment of the same division
captured the offshore island of Wakde with its airstrip
and extended the beachhead on the mainland to
include Maffin Bay.

Later in the month our 41st Division landed 330
miles farther west on Biak Island, strategically located
off Geelvink Bay. The 8,000 well-equipped Japanese
troops on the island put up fierce resistance, and it
was 22 June before Biak's three airfields were in use.
In another surprise attack, this time supported by
paratroops, a regimental combat team occupied
Noemfoor Island in early July. The possession of the
airfield at this point gave much needed breadth and
depth to the air deployment, permitting the further
penetration and dislocation of enemy supply lines in
the Southwest Pacific. By this time Japanese air had
almost disappeared from the New Guinea area except
for an occasional raid on landing craft or over established
beachheads.

A landing at Sansapor on 30 July by elements of our
6th Division secured air and naval bases still further
west, on the Vogelkop Peninsula. Although 18,000
Japanese garrisoned the Vogelkop Peninsula, General
MacArthur again caught the enemy off balance and
resistance was slight.

In a little over 12 months American forces in the
Southwest Pacific, with the assistance of Australian
units, had pushed 1,300 miles closer to the heart of
the Japanese Empire, cutting off more than 135,000
enemy troops beyond hope of rescue. The operations
had been conducted under adverse weather conditions
and over formidable terrain, which lacked roads
in almost every area occupied,and made troop movements
and supply extraordinarily difficult. Malaria was
a serious hazard, but with suppressive treatment and
rigid mosquito control, it no longer was a serious limitation
to tactical operations.

In the Pacific, men who had engaged in combat for
long months had to be withdrawn to rear positions to
recuperate. Consequently, the theater commanders
endeavored to maintain replacement pools sufficiently
large to provide a margin for the lost time of recuperation
and transportation to and from the battle
area. For every unit engaged in combat operations,
more than its equivalent had to be present in the theater
to assure this margin.

The prompt "roll up" of the bases, personnel, and
matériel in Australia and the islands of the South
Pacific permitted the same equipment to be utilized
again and again, so that despite the lower priority
given Pacific operations they could be continued.
Only skeleton organizations remained in Australia, to
procure supplies and maintain air transport.

Similar to the preparation of Western Europe for
invasion, each advance northward toward Japan was
preluded by air attack. Under Lt. Gen. George C.
Kenney, the Fifth Air Force and later the Far East Air
Forces, which included both the Fifth commanded by
Maj. Gen. Ennis C. Whitehead and the Thirteenth
commanded by Maj. Gen. St. Clair Streett, effectively
stopped the flow of supplies to bypassed Japanese
units. The Japanese aerial threat to our own operations
was swept from the skies, and direct support
was provided for the successive amphibious
advances. At the same time, General Kenney's forces
forayed far to the westward, striking powerful blows
at strategic targets in Timor, the Celebes, Java, and
Borneo. These attacks seriously impaired the ability of
the Japanese to maintain their widely scattered forces
and reminded the captive peoples of those islands
that Allied strength was rapidly growing and the enemy's
hold was becoming more and more insecure.

Operation FORAGER to capture the Marianas was
next on Admiral Nimitz's schedule. On 15 June Lt.
Gen. Holland M. Smith's V Amphibious Corps,
consisting of the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions, followed
by the 27th Infantry Division, landed on Saipan.
On 9 July, after 25 days of extremely heavy fighting,
the island was in their possession, though mopping-up
operations continued for months.

On 21 July the 77th Infantry Division, the 3d Marine
Division, and a Marine brigade of the III Marine
Amphibious Corps under Maj. Gen. R.S. Geiger landed
on Guam. The assault made steady progress.
Resistance ceased on 10 August. Shortly after
Saipan operation had ended our XXIV Corps artillery,
which had supported that action, began the neutralization
of Tinian, assisted by fighter aircraft of the
Seventh Air Force. On 24 July elements of the 2d and
4th Marine Divisions assaulted that island and secured
it in 9 days of heavy fighting.

Bombers of the Seventh Air Force, now operating
from Saipan under Maj. Gen. Robert W. Douglass,
soon were striking Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima in the
Bonins. Even before the capture of the Marianas was
complete, airfields were under construction on Saipan

--169--

and Guam, from which Superfortresses could begin
the strategic bombardment of the main Japanese
Island of Honshu. The first major strike was delivered
24 November 1944.

With the rapid increase in the size of the Pacific
Ocean Command, it became necessary to consolidate
the Central and South Pacific Army forces. On 1
August 1944, Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific
Ocean Areas, was established under General
Richardson's command. Concurrently, two subordinate
administrative commands, the Central Pacific
Base Command and the South Pacific Base Command,
were organized. All Army Air Forces in the area were
placed under Headquarters, U.S. Army Air Forces in
the Pacific Ocean Area, commanded by the late Lt.
Gen. Millard F. Harmon, who came from the South
Pacific Area. In addition, General Harmon was designated
Deputy Commander of the Twentieth Air Force
to represent General Arnold in the theater. General
Harmon after a long record of splendid service was
lost in a transPacific flight, on 28 February 1945. He
was succeeded by Lt. Gen. Barney McK. Giles who at
the time of his appointment was Deputy Commander
and Chief of Staff of the Army Air Forces.

Reconquest of the Philippines

Toward the end of August Admiral Halsey's Third
Fleet began a probing operation in the western
Carolines and the Philippines. His carrier planes
struck at Yap and the Palau Islands on 7 and 8
September, and the next two days bombed Mindanao.
On the morning of the 12th, Admiral Halsey struck
the central Philippines and arrived at a conclusion
which stepped up the schedule by months.

The OCTAGON Conference was then in progress at
Quebec. The Joint Chiefs of Staff received a copy of a
communication from Admiral Halsey to Admiral
Nimitz on 13 September. He recommended that three
projected intermediate operations against Yap,
Mindanao, and Talaud and Sangihe Islands to the
southward be canceled, and that our forces attack
Leyte in the central Philippines as soon as possible.
The same day Admiral Nimitz offered to place Vice
Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson and the 3d
Amphibious Force which included the XXIV Army
Crops,then loading in Hawaii for the Yap operation,
at General MacArthur's views were requested and 2 days
later he advised us that he was already prepared to
shift his plans to land on Leyte 20 October, instead of
20 December as previously intended. It was a remarkable
administrative achievement.

The message from MacArthur arrived at Quebec at
night, and Admiral Leahy, Admiral King, General
Arnold, and I were being entertained at a formal dinner
by Canadian officers. It was read by the appropriate
staff officers who suggested an immediate affirmative
answer. The message, with their recommendations,
was rushed to us and we left the table for a
conference. Having the utmost confidence in General
MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz, and Admiral Halsey, it
was not a difficult decision to make. Within 90 minutes
after the signal had been received in Quebec,
General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz had received
their instructions to execute the Leyte operation on
the target date 20 October, abandoning the three previously
approved intermediary landings. General
MacArthur's acknowledgment of his new instructions
reached me while en route from the dinner to my
quarters in Quebec.

That day the 1st Marine Division of General Geiger's
III Marine Amphibious Corps, with a combat team of
the 81st Infantry Division in reserve, landed in Peleliu
in the Palau group. Two days later the 81st Division
landed on Angaur, an island south of Peleliu.

The War Department on 16 September relayed to
General MacArthur a report from General Stilwell to
the effect that the Japanese offensive in central China
would soon result in capture of the eastern China airfields
from which Maj. Gen. Claire L. Chennault's
Fourteenth Air Force had planned to support operations
in the northern Philippines. MacArthur replied
that Admiral Halsey's carrier task force had so severely
reduced hostile air capabilities in the Philippines,
Formosa, and the Ryukyus that it would be possible to
move directly from Leyte to Lingayen Gulf without the
support of Chennault's air force. Admiral Halsey's carrier
planes had destroyed almost 2,000 Japanese aircraft
in the probing attacks during September.

On 22 September another combat team of the 81st
Division moved to Peleliu, where heavy resistance
was being met. Capture of this island was completed
by 30 September except for a few isolated enemy
groups which held out in caves for another two
months. On 21 September, patrols of the 81st Division
landed on Ulithi, meeting no opposition. The main
body landed two days later.

The landing on Peleliu coincided with General
MacArthur's move to seize Morotai north of
Halmahera with the 31st and 32d Divisions. Despite
uniformly stubborn resistance the Japanese had lost a
series of islands which were important stepping
stones for the return to the Philippines and the ultimate
conquest of Japan.

The advance of our forces westward across the
Pacific had been accompanied by the steadily expanding
strategic operations of the Eleventh Army Air
Force in Alaska, the Seventh Air Force in the Central
Pacific, and the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces in the
Southwest Pacific. In the operations fleet carriers had
played a vital part. During the campaigns through the
Southwest Pacific and the western mandated islands,
General Kenney's aircraft and those of the Pacific
Ocean Areas swung their powerful attacks back and

--170--

forth in mutual support of the various operations. At
the same time the westward advance had resulted in
an ability to strike from the air at the foundations of
the Japanese war potential--their shipping,
petroleum, and aircraft industries.

Battle of the Visayas

On 19 October two assault forces, the 3d commanded
by Admiral Wilkinson and the 7th commanded by
Rear Admiral Daniel F. Barbey, approached the east
coast of Leyte with the Sixth Army under General
Krueger aboard. It was an armada of combat and assault
vessels that stretched across the vast Pacific horizon. In
the covering naval forces were the battleships
California,Mississippi,Maryland,Pennsylvania,?
Tennessee, and West Virginia with their screen of cruisers
and destroyers. The troops and matériel with which
we were to seize Leyte were loaded in 53 assault transports,
54 assault cargo ships, 151 landing ships
(tank), 72 landing craft (infantry), 16 rocket ships, and
over 400 other assorted amphibious craft. The air cover
was provided by planes from 18 escort carriers.

Out to sea Admiral Halsey's mighty carrier task
force, which helped prepare the way for the landings
by air bombardment, now stood watch for possible
Japanese naval opposition to the landings. That day a
Japanese search plane discovered this great amphibious
force and reported its presence to Admiral
Kurita's Singapore fleet, which then constituted 50
percent of Japan's major naval units. This report precipitated
one of the decisive battles of history.

The X and XXIV Corps of the Sixth Army went
ashore on schedule the following day after the Navy
had paved its way with drum-fire bombardment.
Three days later General MacArthur directed the
ground forces to secure their beach areas and await
the outcome of the naval battle which was now
impending. The Japanese made the decision to commit
their fleet in the battle to prevent America's
return to the Philippines. Admiral King has described
the great naval action which followed in his
recent report.
Every American who reads it must be filled
with tremendous pride in the achievements of our
fighting Navy.

By the 26th it was apparent that the Third and
Seventh Fleets had virtually eliminated Japan as a sea
power. Her fleet had suffered a crippling blow.

In April 1944 the defense of the Philippines, the
Japanese Empire of conquest in the south and west,
the Netherlands Indies, Malaya, Thailand, Borneo,
French Indo-China, the Moluccas and New Guinea,
had been in charge of Field Marshal Count Hisaichi
Terauchi. From his headquarters at Manila he controlled
17 Japanese armies totaling about 925,000
men. Terauchi was a typical Japanese jingoist. He had
been Minister of War and commanded the armies
which set out in 1937 to sack China. In the fall of 1943
he had assumed command of the southern armies
with headquarters at Singapore. He moved his headquarters
to Manila a half year later when the
Philippines were added to his area. The 14th Area
Army in the Philippines was then under command of
Lt. Gen. Shigenori Kuroda. A month before the forces
of General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz were at his
throat. Terauchi's staff had prepared for him the following
estimate of American intentions:

A two-pronged attack on Luzon is planned. MacArthur's Army,
aided by naval cooperation from Nimitz, will advance in the southern
Philippine Islands. The other attack will be directed at the
northern Philippines from the Pacific Ocean.

Nimitz will provide MacArthur's forces with direct cooperation
support with a part of his naval forces. His main forces will be prepared
to engage our navy in the northern Philippines and Taiwan
area and overcome any air resistance.

The anti-axis Far East Sir Army under Kenney will overcome
any air resistance over the Philippines and together with the
enemy air force stationed in China will operate over the North
China Sea to isolate the Philippines.

In the six days of the great naval action the Japanese
position in the Philippines had become extremely critical.
Most of the serviceable elements of the Japanese
Navy had been committed to the battle with disastrous
results. The strike had miscarried, and General
MacArthur's land wedge was firmly implanted in the
vulnerable flank of the enemy. Terauchi no longer had
an effective fleet to cover his forces in the Philippines
or his communications to the empire of Malaysia so
easily conquered two and one-half years before. There
were 260,000 Japanese troops scattered over the
Philippines but most of them might as well have been
on the other side of the world so far as the enemy's
ability to shift them to meet the American thrusts was
concerned. If General MacArthur succeeded in establishing
himself in the Visayas where he could stage,
exploit, and spread under cover of overwhelming
naval and air superiority, nothing could prevent him
from overrunning the Philippines.

Terauchi decided that the battle must be fought in
the difficult terrain of the Leyte mountains and rice
paddies. He relieved Kuroda as commander of the
14th Area Army and replaced him with General
Tomoyoki Yamashita, who had conquered Singapore
in 1942 and then moved to the Philippines to wind up
the campaign after Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homa had
been unable to budge the American forces holding
out on Bataan. Yamashita was one of Japan's best
known generals. For his victories in Singapore and
Bataan he had been given the First Area Army in
Manchuria, one of the two top field commands in the
Kwantung Army.

To General Makina, commander of the 16th
Division, then fighting a delaying action against the
U.S. Sixth Army under General Krueger, Yamashita
relayed this message:

--171--

Battle of Leyte

--172--

The Army has received the following order from his Majesty,
the Emperor:

"Enemy ground forces will be destroyed."

General MacArthur's advance continued. After
securing the high ground overlooking Leyte Gulf,
Maj. Gen. J.R. Hodge's XXIV Corps penetrated inland
to secure Dagami and Bureauen. The X Corps, under
Maj. Gen. F.C. Sibert, swept across the San Juanico
Strait to seize the south coast of Samar and landed
troops in a short amphibious operation on the north
coast of Leyte.

By 5 November the American forces had reached
the vicinity of Limon at the northern end of the valley
road leading to Ormoc, the principal Japanese installation
on the island. Bitter fighting for Leyte was now
in progress, rendered the more difficult by typhoons
which inaugurated the rainy season.

During the naval battle and the weeks following,
the Japanese were able to transport reinforcements to
Leyte, but by mid-December General Kenney's land-based
fighters and Admiral Halsey's carrier planes had
strangled this stream of reinforcements. On 1
November United States air patrols located four large
transports unloading, escorted by four destroyers and
two destroyer escorts.

Army planes struck and sank one, possibly two
transports. On 3 November, another three transports
were seen unloading at Ormoc, but the Japanese
maintained sufficient air patrol overhead and continued
striking the United States fields on the east coast
so that their unloading operations could not completely
be interrupted. On 7 November three large
transports and four small transports unloaded, covered
by seven destroyers and two destroyer escorts.
On 9 November ten destroyers and two heavy cruisers
brought in four more large troop transports. Kenney's
planes attacked and sank two transports. one destroyer
started into Ormoc Bay. Carrier planes, now reinforced
after the great naval battle, attacked. Two transports
were sunk. Four destroyers were also sent to the
bottom and the fifth was badly damaged. One destroyer
escort was sunk. On 7 December an entire convoy
of six transports, four destroyers, and three destroyer
escorts were sunk in San Isidra Bay by United States
planes. On 11 December three transports and three
destroyers were sunk off Palompam, and the following
day another destroyer was sunk and one destroyer
escort and two transports were badly damaged. By
now the Japanese were abler to commit no more of
their valuable ships to the battle for the central
Philippines and attempted to supply their troops
already on Leyte by sailboat.

The Japanese took heavy troop losses in these
repeated sinkings, but they had at the same time made
some formidable reinforcements. By the middle of
November troops of the U.S. 24th Division, reaching
into the remnants of the Japanese 16th Division west
of Jaro, killed a messenger and learned that the
Japanese 1st Division was now on the island.
Yamashita was therefore committing his best troops.
The 1st Division was one of Japan's finest from the
Kwantung Army.

When United States forces from the south and
across the Pacific began to gather speed, the 1st
Japanese Division had been moved to China. After
General MacArthur's assault force had been sighted,
the 1st Division was rushed from Shanghai to Manila
and then on to Leyte.

In the Ormoc valley the Japanese 1st Division
fought fiercely and delayed but could not stop
Kreuger's advance. By the end of November American
troops were closing on Limon and another column
threatened Ormoc from the south. Violent rain storms
and deep mud harassed the supply lines. Forward
units were dependent on hand-carry. Casualties were
evacuated by native bearers.

But by 1 December seven divisions were well established
ashore, five airfields were in operation, and the
waters of the Visayas under firm naval control.

The 77th Division landed south of Ormoc on 7
December and captured the town four days later
along with great quantities of enemy supplies. Toward
the end of December the 7th, 24th, 32d, 7th, and
96th Divisions, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the 11th
Airborne Division closed out organized Japanese resistance
on the island.

It was at Kilometer 79 on the Ormoc highway that
the Japanese 1st Division command post, defended by
500 exhausted, defeated soldiers made the last stand.
This little band, made up of every element General
Kataoka had been able to reassemble, quit on the
night of 21 December and fled south and west. Men
of the 32d Division found this letter, written by an
unknown Japanese soldier.

I am exhausted. We have no food. The enemy are now within
500 meters from us. Mother, my dear wife and son, I am writing
this letter to you by dim candle light. Our end is near. What will
be the future of Japan if this island should fall into enemy hands?
Our air force has not arrived. General Yamashita has not arrived.
Hundreds of pale soldiers of Japan are awaiting our glorious end
and nothing else. This is a repetition of what occurred in the
Solomons, New Georgia, and other islands. How well are the people
of Japan prepared to fight the decisive battle with the will to
win. . . ?

Marshal Terauchi, realizing that the Philippines
were slipping from his grasp fled with his headquarters
to Saigon, Indo-China.

Command of the battle of Leyte passed to
Eichelberger's Eighth Army on 26 December. For
Krueger's Sixth Army there was other business.
While mopping-up continued on Leyte, General
MacArthur had sent a landing force of two regiments
into southern Mindoro. Within 24 hours American

--173--

Theaters of Operations

The decision to pool the resources of the United States and Great
Britain in joint effort to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan was taken
in the initial War Conference between the President, the Prime Minister
with their Chiefs of Staff held in Washington in December, 1941. To
implement this decision and establish this coordinated strategic control,
there was created the agency known as the Combined Chiefs of Staff.
It was the mission of the Combined Chiefs to propose the operations
to be undertaken, allocate the resources of the two nations accordingly,
define Theaters of Operations, and recommend the Allied Commanders
for these theaters. The map shows the operational areas established.
The Combined Chiefs met periodically, usually with their Chiefs of
State, in the International Conferences, here shown.

--174/175--

planes and PT boats were operating off the southern
coast of Luzon.

Battle of Luzon

In the first week of January a new American assault
force gathered east of Leyte, slipped through the
Surigao Strait over the sunken wrecks of Japanese warships
that had gone down in their attempt to turn
aside the invasion more than two moths before, and
passed into the Mindanao and Sulu Seas. This
American force was treading its way through the heart
of the Philippine Archipelago and through waters
where the Japanese Navy and air forces had for two
years maintained unchallenged supremacy, to invade
Luzon by effecting a landing in Lingayen Gulf, its classic
point of greatest vulnerability.

No opportunity was overlooked to conceal this bold
plan from the Japanese. While the assault force was
proceeding up the west coast of Luzon, Kenney's
planes and the guerrillas under MacArthur's direction
concentrated on the destruction of roads, bridges, and
tunnels to prevent General Yamashita from shifting
forces to meet the assault. The guerrillas in southern
Luzon conducted noisy demonstrations to divert
Japanese attention to the south. Navy mine sweepers
swept the Balayan, Batangas, and Tayabas Bays on the
south coast of Luzon. Landing ships and merchantmen
approached the beaches until they drew fire, then
slipped out under cover of night. United States transport
planes flew over Batangas and Tayabas and
dropped dummies to simulate an airborne invasion.
The Tokyo radio reported that American troops were
trying to land on Luzon but had been driven off.
Japanese forces on the island, harassed by guerrillas
and by air, drove north, south, east, and west in confusion,
became tangled in traffic jams on the roads,
and generally dissipated what chance they might have
had to repel the landing force. On 9 January the U.S.
Sixth Army, now composed of the I and XIV Corps, hit
the beaches in Lingayen Gulf. By nightfall, 68,000
troops were ashore and in control of a 15-miles beachhead,
6,000 yards deep.

The landing had caught every major hostile combat
unit in motion with the exception of the 23d
Infantry Division to the southeast of the beachhead
in the central Luzon plain and its supporting 58th
Independent Mixed Brigade 25 miles to the north of
Lingayen Gulf. Yamashita's inability to cope with
General MacArthur's swift moves, his desired reaction
to the deception measures, the guerrillas, and
General Kenney's aircraft combined to place the
Japanese in an impossible situation. The enemy was
forced into a piecemeal commitment of his troops.
The Japanese 10th and 105th Divisions in the Manila
area which were to secure Highway No. 5 on the
eastern edge of the central Luzon plain failed to
arrive in time. The brunt of defending this withdrawal
road to the north fell to the 2d Japanese
Armored Division which seemingly should have
been defending the road to Clark Field.

General MacArthur had deployed a strong portion
of his assault force on his left or eastern flank to provide
protection for the beachhead against the strong
Japanese forces to the north and east.

In appreciation of the enemy's predicament the
Sixth Army immediately launched its advance toward
Manila across the bend of the Agno which presumably
should have been a strongly held Japanese defense line.

The troops met little resistance until they
approached Clark Field. The I Corps, commanded by
Maj. Gen. Innis P. Swift, had heavy fighting on the east
flank where the Japanese were strongly entrenched in
hill positions. For the time being they were to be held
there to keep the supply line for the advance on Manila secure.

On 29 January troops of General Hall's XI Corps
under strategic direction of the Eighth Army landed
on the west coast of Luzon near Subic Bay, meeting
light opposition. They drove eastward to cut off the
Bataan peninsula where General MacArthur had made
his stand three years before, denying the Japanese the
use of Manila harbor for months.

The 11th Airborne Division on 31 January made an
unopposed amphibious landing at Nasugbu in
Batangas Province south of Manila. Three days later
the division's parachute regiment jumped to Tagaytay
ridge dominating the Cavite area. That night troops of
the 1st Cavalry Division raced through Novaliches and
reached Grace Park in the northeastern portion of the
city of Manila. On 6 February the airborne troops
reached Nichols Field. As the troops of the Sixth
Army closed on Manila from the north, northwest,
and south, the situation of Japanese forces in the city
was rendered hopeless but they fought bitterly from
house to house. Organized resistance ceased on 23
February when American infantry penetrated the old
walled city.

Preceded by heavy air and naval bombardment, elements
of the 38th Division landed on 15 February at
Mariveles on the tip of Bataan. Resistance was light
and our soldiery rapidly advanced along the perimeter
road west of Manila Bay. While the battle for the city
still raged. MacArthur moved to open Manila Bay and
begin preparation of the Philippines as a major base
for the next United States advances in the far Pacific.

Corregidor had gone under Allied bombardment on
23 January, and in less than a month Kenney's airmen
dropped 3,128 tons of bombs on the two and three-fourths
square-mile island that controls Manila Bay.

On the morning of 16 February, two long trains of
Army C-47 transports approached the "Rock," close
to the 500-foot sheer cliffs. A sudden 18-mile-an-hour
wind swept the air clear of the smoke and dust of the

--176--

naval and air bombardment that had ceased a few minutes
earlier. Then the troop carriers began to sow the
sky. 'Chutes spilled out white and troops of the veteran
503d Parachute Regiment drifted downward
toward the lighthouse and golf course on the little
island, against scattered small arms fire from the Japs
on the ground. Simultaneously, troops of the 34th
Infantry Regiment hit the shore in assault boats at San
José South Dock. They ran into a heavy mine field covering
the entire length of the beach, but little fire from
Japs on the island.

Fighting in the tunnels built by Americans in an
attempt to make Corregidor impregnable prior to
World War II, the Japs continued their suicidal resistance
for nearly two weeks. Toward the end there was
a series of terrific explosions on the islands as the Japs
destroyed the tunnel system and themselves with it.
Americans sealed up remaining caves and an estimated
300 Japs. A total of 4,215 Japs were killed on the
island, an unknown number blown up. Of the 3,038
Americans who took back Corregidor, 136 were
killed, 8 were missing, and 531 wounded.

Manila Bay was open in early March. In less than
two months General MacArthur accomplished what
the Japanese had needed six to do after Pearl Harbor.

In late February, elements of the Eighth Army's 41st
Division effected an unopposed landing at Puerto
Princesa, Palawan Island. The force captured the
town with its two airstrips and completely occupied
Puerto Princesa Peninsula. The airfields gave control
of a wide area of the China Sea greatly facilitating the
severance of Japanese communication with Malaysia
and Burma.

On 10 March other 41st Division troops landed on
the western tip of Mindanao, second largest island in
the Philippine group. Initial resistance was light and
the city of Zamboanga fell the following day, but
heavy fighting followed in the foothills and continued
for weeks.

Landings were made during March on Panay, Cebu,
and Negros. Reconnaissance parties went ashore on
Jolo, Tawitawi, and other islands in the Sulu
Archipelago, extending our holdings to within 40
miles of Borneo. In each case the landings were effected
most skillfully with a minimum of resistance but
stubborn and prolonged fighting usually followed in
the hills.

Driving north from the central plain of Luzon, the
Sixth Army Divisions met a fanatical enemy in the
mountain ranges between Baguio and Balete Pass. East
of Manila, infantry fought for long weeks across successive,
bitterly-contested mountain ridges. Other elements
cleared the area south of Laguna de Bay and
advanced along the highway toward the Bicol
Peninsula. On 1 April, a reinforced combat team landed
at Legaspi in southeast Luzon. With the help of
guerrillas, this force cleared the southeastern tip of
the island and then moved northward toward our
other troops advancing from central Luzon.

In mid-April, with the campaign in the Visayas drawing
to a close, General Eichelberger sent the X Corps
of his Eighth Army ashore on Central Mindanao north
of Cotabato. By this time our troops were well established
in the Zamboanga area and guerrilla forces
were in possession of large areas in Northern
Mindanao. Driving eastward to Davao Gulf, infantry of
the 24th Division, X COrps, took Davao City on 4 May
after house-to-house fighting. A column of the 31st
Division drove north up the valley of the Pulangi River
to Kibawe, Meanwhile, on Luzon, the important city
of Baguio had fallen to the 33d and 37th Divisions.

Allied gains in the Southwest Pacific were extended
on 1 May by an amphibious force of Australian and
Netherlands East Indies troops which landed on oil-rich
Tarakan Island, off the northeast coast of Borneo.
By the end of the month all important installations on
the island were in Allied hands.

In mid-May another landing was made on Mindanao,
this time at Agusan on the guerrilla-held north coast.
In two days the assault troops had driven 12 miles
south and seized the town and airfield of Del Monte.

On 13 May, after months of extremely hard fighting,
Balete Pass, gateway to the Cagayan Valley, was captured.
East of Manila, on the same day, the 1st Cavalry
Division reached the sea at Binangonan Point, thus
dividing the last enemy pocket in central Luzon and
cutting to the rear of the strong enemy positions in
the Marikina watershed.

The Net Closes

The Superforts were now blasting the great cities of
the Japanese Islands on an ever-increasing scale. Chief
targets were aircraft plants. Docks and small manufacturing
plants received their share of the punishment.

On 19 February the V Marine [sic: Amphibious] Corps supported by
Admiral R.A. Spruance's Fifth Fleet landed along the
south coast of Iwo Jima, 775 miles from the main
Japanese Island of Honshu. The fighting was exceptionally
heavy and it was a month before organized
resistance terminated. The Japanese defense grew
more desperate as our advance moved toward the
shores of their homeland.

Iwo Jima was of vital importance to the air assault
on Japan. Japanese interceptors which came up to
meet the B-29 strike on Tokyo on 7 April 1945 found
a strong Mustang escort with our bombers. The Iwo
fields saved hundreds of battle-damaged B-29's unable
to make the full return flight to their bases in the
Marianas, 800 miles further to the south.

Meanwhile Philippine-based aircraft were establishing
command over Formosa and the China Coast and
our naval carrier planes, as well as the Superforts,
delivered strikes at the very heart of Japan. It was
now possible to drive forward into the Ryukyuus along

--177--

the main Japanese archipelago bordering the East
China Sea.

The offensive on the Ryukyus was launched on 26
March when the 77th Division of Lt. Gen. Simon B.
Buckner's Tenth Army landed on Kerama retto west
of Okinawa. In three days the force had secured all
islands in the Kerama chain and had emplaced
artillery within range of the key island, Okinawa.

Under cover of an intense naval bombardment, the
XXIV Army Corps and the III Marine [sic: Amphibious] Corps established
beachheads on the west coast of long, narrow
Okinawa on 1 April. Aided by a realistic feint toward
the thickly populated southern tip of the island, our
forces met little resistance in the landing and in consolidating
positions ashore. After driving across the
island, the Marines swung northward against light to
moderate opposition; the Army corps turned south
toward Naha, principal city of the island, where it was
confronted by the main Japanese force elaborately entrenched.

By the end of the first week, four United States divisions
were ashore and Marine fighters were operating
from the Yontan airfield. The III Marine [Amphibious] Corps had
driven 20 miles northward.

General Hodge, commander of the XXIV Army
Corps wrote:

It is going to be really tough. There are 65,000 to 70,000 fighting
Japs holed up in the south end of the island, and I see no way
to get them out except blast them out yard by yard. Our attack is
set to go soon, and I think we are ready.

The Japs have tremendous amounts of artillery and have used it
far more intelligently than I have ever seen them use it to date.
With best estimate, it shows around 500 or more individual
weapons of 75-mm or better, including some 169-175 of caliber
105 or better. The most powerful weapon of long-range we have
encountered to date is the 150 rifle with range of 27,000 yards
which fifes occasionally upon the two airfields from the vicinity of
Shuri. They are using quite a few of the Spigot mortars (320-mm),
250-mm mortars, and aerial bombs up to 250 kilograms fitted as
rockets. They are also using large sized rockets somewhere in the
5-, 6-, to 8-inch class.

The terrain is decidedly rugged and cut up with many cliffs, natural
and man-made, limestone and coral caves, and organized over
long periods of time, and well-manned.

After mopping-up all of the northern part of the
island, the Marines took over a sector in the south to
throw their weight into the drive for Naha. Progress
continued slow against the bitterest sort of opposition
but by the middle of June, our troops had broken
through the heavily fortified Naha and Shuri defense
lines and had compressed the Japanese into two pockets
on southern Okinawa.

The ferocity of the ground fighting was matched by
frequent Japanese air assaults on our shipping in the
Okinawa area. By the middle of June, 33 U.S. ships
had been sunk and 45 damaged. principally by aerial
attacks. In the Philippines campaign U.S. forces first
met the full fury of the kamikaze or suicide attacks,
but at Okinawa the Japanese procedure was better
organized and involved larger numbers of planes; also
the Baka plane appeared, something quite new and
deadly. This small, short range, rocket-accelerated aircraft,
carried more than a ton of explosives in its war
head. It was designed to be carried to the attack, slung
beneath a medium bomber, then directed in a rocket-assisted
dive to the target by its suicide pilot. It was in
effect, a piloted version of the German V-1.

By mid-June, the Japanese had lost twenty percent
of their total combat aircraft strength in the battle for
Okinawa; in all, 3,400 Japanese planes were shot
down over the Ryukyus and Kyushu and 800 more
were destroyed on the ground. During the same period
our losses totaled more than a thousand aircraft.

The pattern of fanatical Japanese resistance continued
in the southernmost tip of the island. Each successive
strong point was cleared only by heroic
efforts of our soldiers and marines. By the end of June
we had suffered 39,000 casualties in the Okinawa
campaign, which included losses of over 10,000
among naval personnel of the supporting fleet. By
the same date, 109,629 Japanese had been killed and
7,871 taken prisoner.

With victory just within his grasp, the Tenth Army
Commander, General Buckner, was forward with his
assault infantry, observing the progress of this final
drive to clean up the island on 18 June. An enemy
artillery salvo squarely bracketed his observation
post, and General Buckner died a soldier's death a
few minutes later. This splendid leader was replaced
by General Joseph W.Stilwell,the Commander of
the Army Ground Forces. The Ground Forces
Command was given to General Jacob L. Devers, the
veteran commander of the Southern Group of
Eisenhower's Armies.

General Buckner had won his battle. Within three
days of his death, all organized resistance had ceased
on Okinawa, our first strategic base within the shadow
of the Japanese homeland.

The 9th Australian Division on 19 June made an
unopposed landing at Brunei Bay, in northwest
Borneo, seizing the naval anchorage and airfields. By
overland and amphibious operations the Australians
quickly drove south to important oilfields at Seria and
Miri. The establishment of air and naval facilities at
Brunei Bay, combined with those in the Philippines,
completed a chain of mutually supporting strategic
bases from which Allied air and naval forces could
cover the Asiatic coast from Singapore to Shanghai,
interdicting the the enemy's overland communications
and escape routes in Indo-China and Malaya.

Meanwhile, General Krueger began the final operations
against the Japanese on Luzon when the 37th
Division drove northward from Balete Pass into the
Cagayan Valley. North of Baguio, our forces met stiff
resistance from Japanese remnants who had gathered

--178--

Battle of Luzon

for a last stand among the precipitous mountains.
Further north, Philippine guerrillas cleared large areas
of northwest Luzon. On 20 June these forces, assisted
by Rangers of the Sixth U.S. Army, captured Aparri,
Luzon's northernmost port, and were astride the main
road through the valley at Taguegarao.

On 23 June a paratroop force of the 11th Airborne
Division dropped just south of Aparri. This force
drove 25 mils southward during the next three days
to establish contact with forward elements of the 37th Division.

The seizure of the Cagayan Valley virtually terminated
the campaign in Luzon, though sizable pockets
of desperate Japanese remained to be eliminated.
In the liberation of the Philippine Islands, General
MacArthur's armies had killed by that time 317,000
and captured 7,236 Japanese against a U.S. casualty
figure of approximately 60,628 killed, wounded,
and missing.

On 1 July Australian forces landed at Balikpapan in
southeastern Borneo. Preceded by a heavy aerial and
naval bombardment, assault troops suffered only light
casualties in seizing their beachheads. By the middle of
July Balikpapan Harbor was open to Allied shipping.

From California to the coast of China the vast
Pacific abounded with American power. In the
Philippines, the Marianas and the Ryukyus, our
forces under steadily increasing reinforcements
from the European continent massed for the final
phase of the Pacific war. The enemy's shipping had
been largely sunk or driven from the seas. The few
remaining fragments of his once powerful naval

--179--

Philippine Liberation

--180--

force were virtually harbor bound and the industries
and communications of Japan were rapidly crumbling
under the mounting tempo of our aerial bombardment.
Lord Mountbatten's forcers in southeastern
Asia were closing in on Malaysia,and the
Netherlands East Indies. Chinese armies, newly
equipped, trained, and determinedly led, were gradually
assuming the offensive.

The day of final reckoning for a treacherous enemy
was at hand.

Final Victory

By direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
MacArthur assumed command of all United States
Army Forces in the Pacific on April 6. Both he and
Admiral Nimitz, Commander of Naval Forces in the
Pacific, were directed to prepare for the final operations
against Japan. By June General MacArthur had
created a new command known as the United States
Army Forces in the Western Pacific under Lt. Gen. W.
D. Styer to replace the old Southwest Pacific Area.
General Richardson was redesignated Commander of
the Army Forces in the Middle Pacific.

On 10 July the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered another
revision of the Pacific Command.

The formerly China-based 20th and 21st Bomber
Commands were deactivated. The 21st became the
20th Air Force and the personnel of the 20th Bomber
Command was transferred to the Eighth Air Force,
which had been redeployed from Europe. General
Twining, who had started in the Pacific war with the
13th Air Force in the Solomons, later moved to command
of the 15th Air Force in Italy, was given command
of the new 20th Air Force. General Doolittle
retained command of the 8th.

Both Air Forces which now controlled the mightiest
fleet of superbombers ever assembled, were combined
into the U.S. Strategic Air Force, the Command
which controlled the American Air assault on
Germany. General Spaatz retained command of
USSTAF in the Pacific. General Giles became his
deputy. General LeMay, who once had commanded
the B-29 fleet in China, then built up the Superfortress
attack in the Pacific, became his Chief of Staff.

Strategic control of the Superfortress fleet remained
with the Joint Chiefs of Staff with General Arnold as
their agent.

During July the superbombers had steadily
increased the scale of their attacks on the Japanese
homeland. From the Marianas bases, the B-29's averaged
1,200 sorties a week. Okinawa airfields which
now occupied almost all suitable space on the island
began to fill with heavy bombers, mediums and fighters
which united in the aerial assault on the Japanese
islands, her position on the Asiatic mainland and
what was left of her shipping. Fighters from Iwo Jima
swept the air over the Japanese Islands, strafed
Japanese dromes and communications and gave the
superbombers freedom of operation. The Third Fleet
augmented by British units hammered Japan with its
planes and guns sailing boldly into Japanese coastal
waters. The warships repeatedly and effectively
shelled industries along the coasts.

These mighty attacks met little opposition. Terrific
air losses during the fierce battles of Japan's interdefenses
had made the enemy desperate. Knowing that
invasion was not long off, he husbanded his now waning
resources for the final battle. Defending the homeland
the enemy had an army of 2,000,000, a remaining
air strength of 8,000 planes of all types, training and combat.

General MacArthur was massing troops and planes
in the Philippines and in Okinawa and in bases to the
south of the Philippines for the showdown. He,in
cooperation with Admiral Nimitz,* was preparing to
execute two plans for the invasion of Japan: the first
known as operation OLYMPIC, provided for a three-pronged
assault on southern Kyushu in the fall of 1945
by the Sixth United States Army, consisting of the I
and the XI Army Corps and the V Marine Amphibious
Corps. The three gorups were to land in the order
named at Miyazaki, Ariaka Wan, and on the beaches
west of Kagoshima to isolate the southernmost
Japanese island and destroy the defending forces
there. Preceding the main assault were to be preliminary
operations in Koshiki Retto and a diversionary
feint off Shikoku by the IX Corps.

The second phase of the Japanese invasion, operation
CORONET, was to be carried out in the early
spring of 1946. The Eight and Tenth Armies, consisting
of nine infantry divisions, two armored divisions
and three Marine divisions were to assault the Kanto
or Tokyo plain of eastern Honshu. These two veteran
Pacific Armies were to be followed ashore by the First
Army, which had spearheaded our victory in Europe
and was now to be redeployed for the final battle of
the Pacific. In this attack the First Army would have
contained 10 infantry divisions. The three armies had
the mission of destroying the Japanese Army on the
main home island and to occupy the Tokyo-Yokohama
area. On Kyushu we would have held a one-corps
reserve of three infantry divisions and one airborne.
From here the plan was to fan out to the north and
clean up the remainder of the Japanese islands.
Supporting the clean-up would ultimately have been
an air garrison equivalent to 50 groups.

These were our plans for final victory in World War
II should Japan fight to a last ditch national suicide.
But we had other plans which we anticipated might
bring a much speedier end to the war. For years the
full resources of American and British science had
been working on the principle of atomic fission. By

* Naval aspects of the plans are not discussed here.

--181--

Okinawa

the spring of this year we knew that success was at
hand. While President Truman was meeting with the
British Prime Minister and Generalissimo Stalin at
Potsdam, a new and terrible bomb was taken to a
deserted area of New Mexico and detonated. The
results were even more terrifying than was anticipated.
A report was rushed to the Secretary of War and
the President at Potsdam, Germany, and it was decided
to use this weapon immediately in an effort to
shorten the war and save thousands of American lives.
From Potsdam General Spaatz received orders to drop
the atomic bomb on the industrial installations of one
of four selected cities from which he could make his
own selection according to weather and target any
time after the 3d of August. he chose the military base
city of Hiroshima.

On 6 August the bomb was dropped. The results are well known.

Two days later the Soviet Union declared war on
Japan and within a few hours the Red Army was again
on the march, this time driving with powerful blows
into the pride of Japanese military power, the
Kwantung Army of Manchuria. The first Red offensives
were across the Manchuria borders and southward on
the island of Sakhalin. The advance by the Red divisions
was swift. They struck first to isolate Manchuria and
then Korea. In rapid thrusts from outer Mongolia and
Trans Baikal, the Soviet forces drove deep into
Manchuria and struck the Khinghan range, captured the
communications center and bases at Hailar and crossed
the Khinghan barrier into Harbin, key city of central
Manchuria. To the south strong mobile forces crossed
the desolate Gobi desert toward southern Manchuria.

Then, on 9 August, the Strategic Air Forces loosed a
second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, which displayed
greater destructive blast and fire than the Hiroshima
bomb. The smoke of the Nagasaki detonation rose
50,000 feet into the air and was visible for more than
175 miles.

The week of 6 August had been one of swift and
sudden disaster to the nation which fired the first shot
ion the series of conflicts that led to World War II.
Japan was being made to pay in full for her treacheries
at Mukden and at Shanghai, at Pearl Harbor and at
Bataan. The enemy situation was hopeless. On 10
August the Japanese Government sued for peace on
the general terms enunciated by the Allied powers at
the Potsdam Conference.

--182--

OLYMPIC and CORONET

--183--

The Arena of Victory

This is the arena in which World War II both began
and finally ended. With her cities leveled by fire bomb
and atomic explosion, her Armies in Asia reeling under
the blows of the Red divisions and American power
massing for invasion, Japan made final payment on the
treacheries of Mukden, Shanghai, Pearl Harbor, and surrendered.

The Japanese islands first came under bombardment
of China-based B-29's on 15 June 1944. This assault was
joined by Superfortresses based in the Marianas on 24
November 1944. The Navy began its carrier strikes that
denied the Japanese fleets the safety of its home harbors
on 16 February 1945. In July the coastal cities of Japan
came under the guns of our warships and on 6 August
the mightiest blow of warfare, the first atomic bomb, was
dropped on the military base city of Hiroshima.

Two days later the Soviet Union joined the assault
on Japan. A second atomic bomb blasted Nagasaki on
9 August. Within 24 hours the aggressor nation that
had fired the first shot of the series of Wars that led up
to the greatest of all conflicts sued for the Peace it had
so flagrantly broken.

--184/185--

Order of Battle U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific (As of 14 August 1945)

Unit

Commander

Locations

General Headquarters, U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur

Manila, Luzon, Philippine Islands

Sixth Army

Gen. Walter Krueger

Luzon, Philippine Islands

40th Infantry Division

Brig. Gen. D.J.Myers

Panay, Philippine Islands

11th Airborne Division

Maj. Gen. J.M. Swing

Luzon, Philippine Islands

I Corps

Maj. Gen. I.P. Swift

Luzon, Philippine Islands

25th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. C.L. Mullins

Luzon, Philippine Islands

33d Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. P.W. Clarkson

Luzon, Philippine Islands

41st Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. J.A. Doe

Mindanao, Philippine Islands

IX Corps

Maj. Gen. C.W. Ryder

Leyte, Philippine Islands

77th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. A.D. Bruce

Cebu, Philippine Islands

81st Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. P.J. Mueller

Leyte, Philippine Islands

XI Corps

Lt. Gen. C.P. Hall

Luzon, Philippine Islands

43d Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. L.F. Wing

Luzon, Philippine Islands

Americal Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. W.H. Arnold

Cebu, Philippine Islands

1st Cavalry Division

Maj. Gen. W.C. Chase

Luzon, Philippine Islands

Eighth Army

Lt. Gen. R.L. Eichelberger

Leyte, Philippine Islands

93d Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. H.H. Johnson

Morotai Island, New Georgia,
and Philippine Islands

96th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. James L. Bradley

Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands, and
Mindanao, Philippine Islands

X Corps

Maj. Gen. F.C.Sibert

Mindanao, Philippine Islands

24th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. R.B. Woodruff

Mindanao, Philippine Islands

31st Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. C.A. Martin

Mindanao, Philippine Islands

XIV Corps

Lt. Gen. O.W. Griswold

Luzon, Philippine Islands

6th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. C.E. Hurdis

Luzon, Philippine Islands

32d Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. W.H. Gill

Luzon, Philippine Islands

37th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. R.S. Beightler

Luzon, Philippine Islands

38th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. F.A. Irving

Luzon, Philippine Islands

Tenth Army

Gen. J.W. Stilwell

Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands

XXIV Corps

Lt. Gen. J.R. Hodge

Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands

7th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. A.V. Arnold

Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands

27th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. G.W. Griner, Jr.

Ie Shima and Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands

U.S. Army Forces, Middle Pacific

Lt. Gen. R.C. Richardson, Jr.

Oahu, Hawaiian Islands

98th Infantry Division

Maj. Gen. A.M. Harper

Oahu, Hawaiian Islands

U.S. Army Forces, Western Pacific

Lt. Gen. W.D. Styer

Luzon, Philippine Islands

Far East Air Forces

Gen. G.C. Kenney

Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands

Fifth Air Force

Lt. Gen. E.C. Whitehead

Okinawa, Ryukyus Islands

Seventh Air Force

Brig. Gen. T.D. White

Saipan, Marianas Islands

Thirteenth Air Force

Maj. Gen. P.B. Wurtsmith

Leyte, Philippine Islands

Order of Battle U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces (As of 14 August 1945)

Headquarters, U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces, Guam, Marianas Islands:

Commanding General

Gen. Carl Spaatz.

Deputy Commander

Lt. Gen. B. McK. Giles.

Chief of Staff

Maj. Gen. C.E. LeMay.

Eighth Air Force, Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands:

Commanding General

Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle.

Twentieth Air Force, Guam, Marianas Islands:

Commanding General

Lt. Gen. Nathan F. Twining.

--186--

Occupation

Orderly civil administration must be maintained in
support of military operations in liberated and occupied
territories. In previous wars, the United States
had no prepared plan for this purpose. In this war it
was necessary to mobilize the full resources of both
liberated and occupied countries to aid in defeating
the enemy. The security of lines of communication
and channels of supply, the prevention of sabotage,
the control of epidemics, the restoration of production
in order to decrease import needs, the maintenance
of good order in general, all were factors
involved. It was important to transform the inhabitants
of liberated countries into fighting allies.

See: FM 27-5United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs
for details of the policy adopted for World War II. --HyperWar

The Civil Affairs Division was created on 1 March
1943 to establish War Department policies designed
to handle these problems. In joint operations, the
Division works closely with a similar agency in the
Navy Department, as well as with related civilian
agencies to determine and to implement United States
policies. The Army and Navy are represented on the
Joint Civil Affairs Committee under the Joint Chiefs of
Staff which is charged with planning for civil affairs in
both Europe and the Pacific. In combined operations,
United States policies are coordinated with those of
the British through the Combined Civil Affairs
Committee of the Combined Chiefs of Staff.

Army officer were trained at the School of Military
Government established at the University of Virginia
and at Civil Affairs training schools to serve in military
government and civil affairs activities in the field. The
operations of these schools is a responsibility of The
Provost Marshal General, under directives prepared
by the Civil Affairs Division.

In French North Africa the civil administration was
conducted by the French Government. The British
managed civil affairs in the territory east of the Tunis-Tripoli border.

In Sicily for the first time, civil affairs officers,
American and British in equal numbers, went ashore
with assault troops. For the remainder of the Sicilian
campaign these officers accompanied combat troops
into town and areas where their services were necessary.
In the initial stages of the Sicilian campaign,
military government was a responsibility of combat
commanders, and civil affairs officers went with
fighting troops to take the burden of dealing with
the civil populace off the commander's shoulders.
They organized the civil administration so as to
secure the cooperation of the Sicilians, and thus
relieve tactical commanders from the necessity of
diverting detachments from combat troops for security.
Allied Military Government of Occupied
Territories was extended in Sicily as rapidly as the
enemy was cleared from a community.

A similar procedure was followed in the early phases
of the invasion of the Italian mainland. Civil affairs
officers, attached to the 14th Army Group, were
placed under the commanding generals of the Fifth
and Eighth Armies. A mobile Allied Military
Government headquarters moved with each army.

After Italy capitulated and became a cobelligerent
against Germany, the Allied Control Commission for
Italy was established by the Combined Chiefs of Staff
to supervise the activities of the Italian Government
and to insure that the terms of the surrender were
observed. The Supreme Allied Commander in the
Mediterranean Theater is president of the
Commission. Originally, it was a United States-British
military agency. Now the percentage of civilian personnel
is progressively increasing. Early in 1945 the
Allies reestablished diplomatic relations with Italy and
since that time diplomatic representatives have dealt
with political matters. The major portion of the Italian
peninsula has been transferred from the control of
AMG to that of the Italian Government.

Experience gained in Sicily and Italy and practices
followed there have been utilized in all subsequent operations.

Public safety, health, supply, agricultural, and other
experts in the various phases of civil affairs accompanied
the invasion forces into Sicily and Italy. The
security of the armies and their property, the protection
of local resources for the use of the armies, and
the keeping of public order were achieved by public
safety officers who worked largely through the Royal
Carabinieri and other Italian police. Emergency civilian
relief supplies, food, medicine, soap, and coal
were accumulated in North Africa before and during
the Italian campaign. They were supplemented by
shipments from the United Kingdom and the United
States. In one year more than two million long tons of
relief supplies were distributed in Italy. However,
scarcity of food remained the most difficult civil
affairs problem in that country. This was complicated
by the Fascist-born black market, by lack of shipping
space for nonmilitary goods, and by partial paralysis
of inland transportation facilities which had been
crippled by the enemy and by Allied bombings. Yet

--187--

the bread ration rose from 125 to 200 grams, and
finally to 300.

Conditions favorable to epidemics were created by
undernourishment, lack of soap and water, broken
sewers, dead animals, overcrowding, and refugees.
The united efforts of the medical personnel of the
armies and the public health experts of AMG, who
directed and assisted the Italian medical profession,
kept epidemics under control. Outbreaks of typhus
were suppressed. The public was informed of the danger
from rodents and vermin as plague carriers.
Refugees were deloused. Demolished water supply
and sewer systems were restored. The services of a
few experts prevented malaria from levying a heavy
toll on our fighting men.

Many fugitives from Nazi oppression, chiefly
Yugoslavs, had escaped into Italy. They have been
cared for by the Army, and thousands have been evacuated
to the Near East. A camp, capable of housing a
group of 40,000 displaced persons, was opened by
the Army at Philippeville, Algeria, and approximately
1,000 such refugees have been established in a temporary
camp at Oswego, N.Y.

In France and other liberated countries of
Northwestern Europe, the aims and activities of civil
affairs personnel were the same as in Italy. However,
special conditions required revised methods. In Italy
there was a progressive movement from full military
government toward looser forms of control, including
increased participation by civilians and the Italian
Government. In the European Theater of Operations,
civil affairs personnel was required to shift abruptly
from cooperative management of civil affairs in liberated
areas to full blown military government in Germany.

The War Department coordinated negotiations on
the United States military level with the French
Committee of National Liberation. They drew up
agreements for the administration of civil affairs and,
after approval by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, these
were signed by General Eisenhower for the United
States and General Koenig for the French Committee.
The British executed a similar agreement on a governmental level.

Under these agreements, civil affairs in Corsica and
France were effected through a French Delegate acting
in accordance with French law. Later General
Eisenhower was represented by a SHAEF Military
Mission in France. The French civil administration
cooperated effectively and it was unnecessary for
General Eisenhower to invoke his paramount powers
of control even in forward areas. So well did this
understanding work that, as early as 24 October 1944,
a zone of interior was proclaimed in France, which
had the effect of formally restoring practically complete
control over all governmental problems to the
French Provisional Government. United States and
United Kingdom officials had the aid of French officers
in helping the armies keep their lines communication
open and supplies flowing forward. The
French Provisional Government furthered the campaign
in a variety of ways. During the autumn rains,
"duckbill" type tread extensions were needed to give
tanks better traction on muddy terrain. The French
contributed 600 tons of their sparse steel stocks to
make 400,000 "duckbills." The provided storm boats
for the spring campaign requiring river crossings. It
has been estimated that by the end of February 1945
the French Provisional Government had made available
to the Allies supplies, labor, services, installations,
transportation, and other facilities valued at
approximately 225 million dollars.

Prior to the invasion of Normandy, the Governments
of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and
the Supreme Allied Commander in London. As these
governments were reestablished on the continent.
General Eisenhower designated a SHAEF Military
Mission to each nation.

In Albania, Greece, and yugoslavia, the interests of
the United States in the administration of civil affairs
is limited to the activities concerned with relief and rehabilitation.

Since D-day in Europe, our military authorities have
carried out a civilian relief import program for the liberated
peoples of Europe in coordination with the
British. The relief supplies have consisted mostly of
limited quantities of food, medical supplies, clothing
and fuel. The United States share of this program,
exclusive of petroleum products, for the northwest
Europe and the Mediterranean areas, is approximately
3,900,000 tons for the year ending 30 June 1945.

In addition to imports of specific supplies for the
civilian populations, the military authorities have
actively assisted the liberated countries in the construction
or repair of railroads, highways, and bridges,
the reactivation of public utility services, and the construction
or repair of port facilities and inland waterways.
The Army has also been of assistance to the liberated
governments in its efforts to aid in the resumption
of essential industries such as coal mining, fishing,
and others which would provide supplies to further
the military effort and reduce shipping required
for relief imports.

--188--

Military responsibility for provision of civilian supplies,
except coal, for France was terminated 1 May
1945. It is expected that termination of military
responsibility for furnishing civilian supplies
throughout liberated northwest Europe,including
coal for France, will be terminated on or about 1
September 1945.

The American Armies have accumulated so great a
crop of prisoners that their handling has been a problem
of immense complexity. Following the termination
of hostilities in Europe our forces were holding
130,000 Italian prisoners and 3,050,000 German prisoners
as well as an additional 3,000,000 German
troops who were disarmed after the unconditional
surrender. Of these, 370,000 German and 50,000
Italian prisoners are in the United States and Hawaii,
and their disposition is a matter of immediate concern.
It is the policy of the War Department to return
to Europe all prisoners held in the United States as
soon as this movement is practicable logistically.

The total capture in combined European operations
has been divided equally between the United States
and the British Commonwealth Governments. In addition
to those prisoners who were the direct responsibility
of the United States, this Government agreed to
take 175,000 of the British captures with the understanding
they would be returned as soon as possible.

The country has benefited from the utilization of
the labor of these prisoners of war. Our critical manpower
shortage has been relieved by 62,075,800 prisoner
working days; the U.S. Treasury has been
enriched by $35,196,800 paid by private contractors
for this labor. In addition, their use on military installations
has an estimated value of $108,825,469. After
the capitulation of Italy, 110,000 Italian prisoners volunteered
for Italian Service Units which perform non-combatant
work helpful to the Allied war effort.

In the utilization of prisoners of war in continental
United States, under the direction of The Provost
Marshal General, the principle has been followed that
such labor will not be permitted to compete with
American civilian labor or to impair American wage
standards and working conditions. Before a private
contractor may employ prisoner of war labor, he must
obtain from either the
War Manpower Commission
or the War Foods Administration
a certification that civilian
labor is not available for the project.

The policy of the United States with respect to treatment
to be accorded to prisoners of war held by this
country is in accordance with
Geneva
Prisoners of War Convention, which was ratified by the United States on
16 January 1932, and thus has the power of law. In following
the provisions of the convention, the enemy
prisoners have received firm treatment. At the same
time a program of reorientation has been instituted to
impress upon prisoners the vitality and strength of
democratic institutions in the United States.

Prior to the unconditional surrender,
military government
in Germany was established by General
Eisenhower throughout the areas occupied by his
forces. Military government detachments followed in
the wake of the advancing armed forces and established
rigid control over the civil population, taking
the first steps necessary to reestablish German administration
free from Nazi influence. Some 5,500,000 displaced
civilians and liberated United Nations prisoners
of war were uncovered in Germany. By the end of
June nearly 3,000,000 had been repatriated to their
home lands. Suspected war criminals and persons
whose freedom might endanger the security of the
occupying forces were taken into custody.

The remarkable efficiency of handling both prisoners
and displaced persons along the routes of an
advancing victorious army was the fruit of an intensive
effort to establish a new conception in the organization
of military police. Our experience in the old
AEF indicated that a highly trained military police
force could be of tremendous value to military operations.
Up to that time military police were used simply
to enforce discipline and the regulations to which
troops were subject. A careful study of World War
maneuvers brought the concept of using military
police for helpful control of military traffic moving to
and during battle. For this purpose special training
schools were established by the Provost Marshal
General. Insofar as possible older men were selected
for the training. The returns on this effort were especially
rich in the drive across France which heavily
depended on the forwarding of the troops and supplies
which had been put ashore in Normandy. Later
in the collapse of German resistance the military
police performed miracles in regulating the dense,
rather chaotic traffic on the roads, burdened with
combat troops and their supplies surging forward and
millions of prisoners or displaced persons straggling
in the opposite direction.

With the unconditional surrender of the German
armed forces on 8 May, rigid military government was
established throughout the whole of General
Eisenhower's area of responsibility. The redeployment
of forces into the national zones of occupation agreed
upon by the four powers in the European Advisory
Commission began. On 5 June General Eisenhower
met in Berlin with Field Marshal Montgomery, Marshal
Zhukov, and General De Lattre and on behalf of the
United States signed the declaration by which the four
governments assumed supreme authority and power
in Germany. The Control Council in Germany was set
up in accordance with the four-power protocol of the
European Advisory Commission. At the end of June,
General Eisenhower's responsibility as a Supreme
Allied Commander for military government in
Germany terminated and, as Commander in Chief of

--189--

Zones of Occupation

the United States Occupation Forces in Germany, he
became responsible for the military government of
the United States zone of occupation. The United
States zone of occupation includes the whole of
Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Hesse and Hesse-Nassau, and
the northern portion of Baden, and, in addition, a portion
of Berlin and the ports of Bremen and
Bremerhaven. Lieutenant General Lucius DuB. Clay
serves as Deputy Military Governor of the United
States zone and as General Eisenhower's representative
on the Coordinating Committee of the Control
Council. He is assisted by a staff of specially chosen
civilian and military experts.

In the closing days of the German campaign Allied
Military Government was established in Austria.
Officers and men, especially trained to deal with the
problems of Austria, accompanied the tactical forces
into those portions of the country occupied by United
States, British, and French forces and took over control
of all civil affairs. The military government in
Austria differs substantially from that in Germany.
Although the program of denazification and demilitarization
of Germany is being extended in Austria, the
United Nations will endeavor to promote conditions
which will lead to the establishment of a free and
independent Austria. Allied control in Austria is conducted
through quadripartite administration by
Soviet, British, French, and United States commanders,
each of whom has been made responsible for a
zone of occupation. Combined command of United
States and British forces in Austria has been terminated.
Matters of concern to Austria as a whole are dealt
with by the four national commanders sitting in
Vienna. General Clark has been designated the
Commanding General of United States forces in
Austria and, as such, will be the United States representative
on the Governing Body of the Allied
Administration in Austria. Though Austria has become
a part of the European Theater of Operations, General
Clark, in his role as the United States representative in

--190--

the Allied Administration in Austria, is responsible
directly to the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The liberation of the Philippines would have
involved major problems of civil affairs had the
Commonwealth Government and local officials of
inflexible loyalty not shown from the very first landings
immediate competence to reorganize administration
and reestablish orderly government. By agreement
with the Commonwealth Government it has
been understood throughout the whole of the
Philippine campaign that military responsibility for
civil affairs was limited to the provision of necessary
emergency relief to the population. Through military
channels 140,000 tons of civil relief supplies were
shipped to the Philippines between November 1944
and 1 July 1945.

The first major operation requiring the establishment
of military government over large numbers of
Japanese people was at Okinawa. In that testing
ground of policies, for the main islands of Japan, valuable
experience was gained by military government
personnel of the Army working with naval personnel.

The capitulation of Japan has been followed by the
occupation of various strategic portions of the four
main Japanese Islands by Allied forces under the
supreme command of General MacArthur.

An important element of the surrender was the
clear statement by the Allied Powers that from the
moment of the capitulation, the Emperor and the
Japanese Government would be under the absolute
authority of the Supreme Commander. Initially, military
government has not been established in the same
manner as in Italy or Germany. The will of the Allied
Powers as exemplified in the
surrender instrument is
being imposed upon the Japanese through the channel
of the Emperor and the Japanese governmental machinery.

Our Weapons

The Nation's state of unpreparedness along with
that of the British Empire gave the Axis nations an
overwhelming initial advantage in matériel. The
Japanese campaigns in China, the Italian campaign in
Ethiopia, and the participation of German and Italian
troops in the Spanish Civil War afforded these enemies
an opportunity to test their new weapons on the
battlefield. This is a matter of very great importance
preliminary to decisions for quantity production of
any weapon. Since we had some time in which to
mobilize our resources, the vastly superior industrial
establishment of the United States eventually overcame
the initial advantage of the enemy.

During the past two years the United States Army
was well armed and well equipped. The fact is we
dared to mount operations all over the world with a
strategic inferiority in numbers of troops. Were it not
for superiority in the air and on the sea, in mobility
and in firepower we could not have achieved tactical
superiority at the points chosen for attack nor have
prevented the enemy from bringing greater forces to
bear against us.

From the time of the landing in France to the time
the Allies had reached the German frontiers, the
German armies of the West exceeded numerically the
attacking forces. General MacArthur invaded the
Philippines with a lesser force than that with which
the Japanese held the islands. In the immediate strategic
area Japanese strength far outnumbered us. By no
other criterion can the quality and quantity of our
weapons better be judged. Yet we were in some
instances outdone by both Germany and Japan in the
development of specific weapons. It is truly remarkable
that our superiority was as general and as decisive
as it proved to be.

Overshadowing all other technological advance of
the war was the Allied development of the atomic
explosive. The tremendous military advantage of this
terrifying weapon fell to use through a combination of
good luck, good management and prodigious effort.
Th;e harnessing of atomic power should give
Americans confidence in their destiny but at the same
time we must be extremely careful not to fall victim to
overconfidence. This tremendous discovery will not
be our exclusively indefinitely. In the years of peace
between the two world wars we permitted Germany
to far outpace us in the development of instruments
which might have military use. As a consequence
German development of long-range rockets and pilotless
aircraft, stemming from years of peacetime
research, was far more advanced than our own, which
began in earnest only after the war had already started.
The fact that we overtook Germany's head start on
atomic explosive is comforting, but certainly should
not lull us again into a state of complacent inertia.

In the development of aircraft and ships U.S. factories
and productive "know-how" soon gave the Allies
both a qualitative and quantitative advantage over
Germany and Japan. By the time the great air battles of
Europe and the far Pacific were joined, U.S. planes
were superior in numbers and types to the enemy's.
Our development of the long-range heavy bombers,
now exemplified by the B-29, has been unmatched.
The Germans themselves admit they did not even
foresee our developments in the long-range fighter.
They first introduced the jet engine in combat, but
this was not because we had made no progress in this
field. By the time their jet fighters were ready to take
the air, the only areas in which they could give them
operational tests were swept by our fighters. They
had either to test them in combat or not at all. The
German jet fighters were limited to a maximum
endurance of a little over an hour. Ours already had
the endurance to fly nonstop from San Francisco to
New York.

--191--

Another noteworthy example of German superiority
was in the heavy tank. From the summer of 1943 to
the spring of 1945 the German Tiger and Panther
tanks outmatched our Sherman tanks in direct combat.
This stemmed largely from different concepts of
armored warfare held by us and the Germans, and the
radical difference in our approach to the battlefield.
Our tanks had to be shipped thousands of miles overseas
and landed on hostile shores amphibiously. They
had to be able to cross innumerable rivers on temporary
bridges, since when we attacked we sought to
destroy the permanent bridges behind the enemy
lines form the air. Those that our planes missed were
destroyed by the enemy when he retreated. Therefore
our tanks could not well be of the heavy type. We
designed our armor as a weapon of exploitation. In
other words, we desired to use our tanks in long-range
thrusts deep into the enemy's rear where they could
chew up his supply installations and communications.
This required great endurance--low consumption of
gasoline and ability to move great distances without
break-down.

But while that was the most profitable use of the
tank, it became unavoidable in stagnant prepared-line
fighting to escape tank-to-tank battles. In this combat,
our medium tank was at a disadvantage. when forced
into a head-on engagement with the German heavies.
Early in 1944 it was decided that a heavy American
tank, on which our Ordnance experts had been continuously
experimenting since before the war, must
be put into mass production. As a result the M-26
(Pershing) tank began to reach the battle lines last
winter. This tank was equal in direct combat to any
the Germans had and still enjoyed a great advantage
in lighter weight (43 tons), speed, and endurance. At
the same time work was begun on two new models,
the T-29 and T-30, which weighed 64 tons, one
mounting a high-velocity 105-mm rifle, the other a
155-mm rifle.

Following the fierce fighting in North Africa and in
the Papuan campaign in New Guinea, it became clear
that our lack of preparedness and research in military
instruments during peacetime would have to be overcome
by extreme measures. Accordingly, in the late
spring of 1943 I selected an expert ordnance officer,
Col. William A. Borden, and directed him to work
under me independently of normal War Department
channels in the development and modification of
weapons and improved techniques. His first efforts
were devoted to increasing the effectiveness of our
weapons against the Japanese in jungle fighting. As a
result, the 105-mm and 155-mm mortars, flame throwers,
ground rockets, improved launching devices, skid
pans for towing heavy artillery in mud, improved
bazooka ammunition, and colored smoke grenades
were developed and the production and shipment to
the theaters were expedited.

Later the Secretary of War decided to establish a
division of the War Department Special Staff to be
charged with coordinating the experience of our
troops in the field with the Nation's scientific developments
in order to keep us abreast in the race for
newer and more deadly means for waging war. The
New Developments Division was organized by Maj.
Gen. Stephen G. Henry in October 1943. Officers
were sent to the theaters to observe troops in combat
to search for ways in which to apply our civilian scientific
knowledge to the problems of the battlefield.
They then returned and coordinated and expedited
experimentation with new types of weapons and
equipment by the appropriate Army Service Forces
agency. When some item was developed it was taken
to the theaters for trial and if successful put into production.
Some examples: flame-throwing tanks, air
rockets, improved ground rockets, self-propelled
heavy artillery and electronic devices for locating
enemy mortar and gun positions.

In addition, the New Developments Division studied
and interpreted the intelligence available on new
enemy weapons, particularly the proposed targets
for air bombardment of the V-1 launching sites and
supply channels to them. The air reduction for these
sites so seriously interfered with the effectiveness of
the V-1 that its threat to the invasion of France never materialized.

In August 1944 Brig. Gen. Borden succeeded
General Henry as Chief of the New Developments
Division when the latter officer was appointed Chief
of the Personnel Division of the War Department
General staff. Special emphasis was then placed on
the development of guided missiles, heavy tanks,
recoilless artillery,rockets, radar, and night viewing
devices, as well as expediting the production and
shipment overseas of improved types of many of our
new weapons or devices.

In most respects, our battle clothing was as good as
can be supplied to any soldier of any country. The
"layering" principle saves the greatest possible protection,
and at the same time the greatest freedom of
movement. The rubber-bottomed, leather-topped
shoepac, worn with heavy ski socks and a felt innersole,
overcame the heavy incidence of trench foot
among our troops fighting in cold and extremely wet
climates. No clothing has ever been invented that will
make the exposure men must endure in combat pleasant.
It has been possible only to develop sufficient
protection to prevent large-scale casualties form such
exposure. This we accomplished both in Europe and
in the battlefields of the East. The principal difficulty
in meeting this problem was control of the wasteful
habits of our men in their use and misuse of the clothing
and equipment issued.

The American Army was unquestionably better fed
than any in history. However, feeding in combat can
never be like that in garrison or cantonment, nor

--192--

remotely like home cooking. Field rations must be
non-perishable, compact, and easily carried by the
individual soldier. The problem of providing troops
with appetizing food has plagued armies down
through the centuries. The development of field
rations for the United States Army in this war was
almost revolutionary. The combat rations "C" and "K"
were given a range of variety that combat troops
would not have dreamed of a few years ago. The "C"
ration, the subject of much amusing criticism, was
supplied with 10 different meat components: meat
and beans; meat and vegetable stew; meat and
spaghetti; ham, eggs, and potatoes; meat and noodles;
meat and rice; frankfurters and beans; port and beans;
ham and lima beans; and chicken and vegetables.
These were rations that could be made available to
men actually under heavy fire. Where there was more
time for the preparation of food, troops were given
the "10-in-1" ration which contains canned vegetables
and fruits, caned desserts, chocolate and other candies,
roast beef, roast pork and similar meat components,
even canned hamburgers. When troops in the
field were not under fire, they were fed the "B" ration
which offered a wide selection considering the circumstances.
Since under conditions where the "B"
ration was fed, there were usually few, if any, facilities
for refrigeration and preserving foods, this ration was
composed of canned vegetables, meats, fruits, and
dehydrated potatoes and eggs and similar items. It certainly
did not compare with the fresh eggs and meats
and vegetables common to the American family table,
but it was a vast improvement over past issues of
campaign rations. In the rear areas where food could
be shipped quickly and preserved under refrigeration,
the "A" ration was fed. This is a good food as
can be served large numbers of men. Compared with
these American Army rations was the Japanese ration
of 11/2 pounds of rice and small quantities of meat or
fish a day. The Japanese soldier, however, thrived on
this diet because he had been accustomed to little
more at home.

In major ground campaigns to destroy the enemy's
forces and end his resistance, such as we fought in
North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany, one of the
basic factors in the final decision is the armament and
equipment of the infantry divisions and the manner in
which they are employed. A nation with the belligerent
tradition of Germany, concentrating its resources
on a powerful army and enjoying every initial advantage
from years of preparation for war, should have
the upper hand in many if not all of the basic infantry weapons.

In two of these basic items the German Army held
an advantage almost to the end of the war. The first
was the triple-threat 88-mm rifle which our troops
first encountered in North Africa. Even at that time
the U.S. Army had a similar weapon, the 90-mm rifle,
with greater penetrating power but the Germans had
theirs on the battlefields and in quantity, with the
"bugs" worked out in pervious battle experience over
a period of years. The United States forces did not
have the 90-mm in quantity at the time and were compelled
to work out its shortcomings in opposition to a
proven weapon.

As a result the 88 was a powerful German weapon,
ahead of our in quantity and technique almost to the
end of the war. In the Spanish Civil War the Germans
were careful to conceal the role of the 88 as an antitank
and antipersonnel weapon, revealing it only as an
antiaircraft piece. When we first encountered it, it
was serving all three purposes with deadly effect. A
single 88 could fire several rounds of armor-piercing
shells at our tanks,then suddenly begin firing air-bursting
fragmentation shells at our infantry following
their tanks, and a few minutes later throw up an antiaircraft
fire at planes supporting the ground operation.
The 90-mm rifle had no such flexibility. It could
not be depressed low enough for effective antitank
fire. Our technique of handling the gun had not been
sufficiently developed so that interchangeable ammunition
was available to the gun when it was needed,
and we did not have the numbers of the weapons the
Germans had.

A second marked German advantage during most of
the European war was in powder. German ammunition
was charged with smokeless, flashless powder
which, in both night and day fighting, helped the
enemy tremendously in concealing his fire positions.
United States riflemen, machine gunners, and gunners
of all types had to expose their positions with telltale
muzzle flashes or puffs of powder smoke. German
preparations had given them time to develop this
high-grade powder and manufacture tremendous
quantities of it. They had it there and they used it.
These facts should be considered along with our policy
regarding the manufacture of explosives after the
last war and the scientific development that should or
would have followed in the plants of the great commercial
manufacturers had they not been subjected to
bitter attack as "Merchants of death."

Careful planning and husbandry of the Army's meager
peacetime resources and the nature of this
Nation's machine economy gave the American armies
in Europe two good advantages over the German
enemy. One of ours was the
Garand semi-automatic
rifle, which the Germans were never able to duplicate.
It is interesting to trace the planning and decisions
that gave us the Garand rifle and the tremendous
small arms fire power that went with it, noting especially
that the War Department program for the
Garand was strenuously opposed.

The base of fire of a rifle platoon is its automatic
weapons. The riflemen concentrate their fire on the
impact area blocked out by the automatics. The base

--193--

of fire of a United States rifle squad in this war has
been its Browning automatic rifle. Prior to the war the
Army had several hundred thousand of these weapons
in war reserve. The developments of the war indicated
it might be well to replace the automatic rifle with
another type of small automatic weapon, but if we
had, we would have jammed production facilities,
replacing a type of weapon already in stock. Instead,
it was decided to modify the automatic rifle and
devote production to the Garand rifle.

The Germans, on the other hand, shifted their rifle
squad automatic weapon to a new type of light
machine gun developed just before the war. Their
standard rifle at the end of the war was still bolt-operated.
They had produced a few semi-automatic rifles
but they were never effective and did not reach the
battlefield in numbers. In their efforts to improve the
firepower of their infantry, the Germans then beat us
to quantity production of the machine pistol, which
we did not have in large numbers on the battlefields
until well near the end of the European war. Our
superiority in infantry firepower, stemming from the
use of the semi-automatic rifle, was never overcome.

The greatest advantage in equipment the United
States has enjoyed on the ground in the fighting so far
has been in our multiple-drive motor equipment,
principally the jeep and the 21/2-ton truck. These are
the instruments which have moved and supplied
United States troops in battle while the German Army,
despite the fearful reputation of its "panzer armies"
early in the war, still depended heavily on animal transport
for its regular infantry divisions. The United
States, profiting from the mass production achievements
of its automotive industry, made all its forces
truck-drawn and had enough trucks left over to supply
the British armies with larger numbers of motor vehicles
and send tremendous quantities to the Red Army.

The advantage of motor vehicle transport did not
become strikingly clear until we had reached the
beaches of Normandy. The truck had difficulty in the
mountains of Tunisia and Italy, but once ashore in
France our divisions had mobility that completely outclassed
the enemy. The Germans discovered too late
the error of the doctrine which a member of their general
staff expressed to General Wedemeyer,
then in
Berlin, in the late thirties; "The truck has no place on
the battlefield." He meant by this that an unarmored
vehicle was too vulnerable to be brought within
immediate fire areas.

The appearance of an unusually effective enemy
weapon, or of a particularly attractive item of enemy
equipment usually provoked animated public discussion
in this country, especially when stimulated by
criticism of the Army's supposed failures to provide
the best. Such incidents posed a very difficult problem
for the War Department. In the first place, the
morale of the fighting man is a matter of primary
importance. To destroy his confidence in his weapons
or in the higher command is the constant and intense
desire of the enemy. The American soldier has a very
active imagination and usually, at least for the time
being, covets anything new and is inclined to endow
the death-dealing weapons of the enemy with extraordinary
qualities since any weapon seems much
more formidable to the man receiving its fire than to
the man delivering it. If given slight encouragement,
the reaction can be fatal to the success of our forces.
Commanders must always make every effort to show
their men how to make better, more effective use of
what they have. The technique of handling a weapon
can often be made more devastating then the power
of the weapon itself. This was best illustrated by the
correct, the intended, tactical employment of the
United States medium tank.

Another factor involved is the advantage given to
the enemy by informing him which of his weapons
is hurting us most. And along with this goes the
similar embarrassment of not wishing to disclose to
the enemy the state of the measures you are most
certainly taking to correct any demonstrated weakness
in a particular weapon or in armament generally.
If a machine gun is found to jam after one or
two bursts or at high altitudes, you don't give the
enemy this important information. Nor do you wish
to sacrifice surprise by advising him in advance of
the improved weapon to come or actually in process
of deployment.

In some of the public discussions of such matters,
criticism was leveled at the Ordnance Department
for not producing better weapons. This Department
produced with rare efficiency what it was told to
produce, and these instructions came from the
general Staff of which I am the responsible head,
transmitting the resolved views of the officers with
the combat troops or air forces, of the commanders
in the fields.

In the other categories of weapons and equipment
of the infantry divisions,machine guns, mortars,
artillery, individual equipment, the United States and
the German armies were so nearly equal that neither
had any marked advantage. The German infantry rocket,
the Panzerfaust, had greater hitting power than the
United States bazooka which had been developed
first. We believe that our use of massed heavy artillery
fire was far more effective than the German techniques
and clearly outclassed the Japanese. Though
our heavy artillery from the 105-mm up was generally
matched by the Germans, our method of employment
of these weapons has been one of the decisive factors
of our ground campaigns throughout the world.

In the field of aircraft armament, United States
matériel was excellent. The .50-caliber aircraft
machine gun was one of the most reliable weapon of
the war. The latest version of this gun had a cyclic rate

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of 1,200 rounds a minute. The German 30-mm aircraft
cannon had as an American counterpart a 37-mm aircraft
cannon. The newest version of this United States
weapon had a velocity of 3,000 foot-seconds. The
Japanese primarily used a 37-mm gun built on obsolete
design principles. The 75-mm aircraft cannon
which some United States planes carry was a heavier
gun than any other air force has ever mounted.

American bombs and the newest fusing and control
devices which guide them to their targets had no
counterpart. United States heavy military equipment
such as tractors, earth-moving machinery, railroads
and rolling stock, bridging equipment, and similar
items stood the test of battle splendidly.

Radar equipment developed by the United States
and Britain was superior to the electronics devices of
either Germany or Japan. Our radar instruments, for
example, which tracked aircraft in flight and directed
the fire of antiaircraft guns was more accurate than
any possessed by the enemy. American radar detection
equipment, which picked up planes in the air and
ships at sea, had greater range than the German.
Japanese radar was greatly inferior.

Great emphasis was placed on airborne radar by the
United States and British and the use of this device
was a very important factor in the control of the submarine
menace. Close personal supervision over this
War Department program was exercised by the
Secretary of War. Radar bombsights together with
radio navigational aids permitted accurate bombing of
German and Japanese targets under adverse weather conditions.

In the field of amphibious assault craft, the United
States and Great Britain made great progress. This
resulted from the fact that in every major campaign
we waged in this war, we had to cross water and
attack enemy-held positions. There was nothing anywhere
which compared or even resembled our big
landing ships with ramp prows and the dozens of
other type craft which have put our armies ashore
from North Africa to Okinawa. The initial development
of these special types was stimulated by Lord
Louis Mountbatten and the staff of the special British
Commando forces under his direction.

Not only did the Nation's industrial establishment
equip our Army, but it also contributed heavily to
the hitting power of the other United Nations. The
allocation of military lend-lease matériel to the
Allied Powers exceeded a dollar value of 20 billions.
A United States armored division can be fully
equipped for 34 millions. The equipment of an
infantry division represents a dollar expenditure of
10 millions. translated into these terms, the dollar
value of the arms alone turned over to our Allies
would equip 588 armored divisions, or 2,000
infantry divisions.

To the British Empire went enough aircraft to equip
four air forces the size of our Ninth as it went into
action on D-day in Western Europe. At that time the
Ninth was the largest air force in the world. American
raw materials made possible a large percentage of
Britain's own war production. But in addition fully fabricated
equipment shipped to Britain in the last two
years included 76,737 jeeps, 98,207 trucks, 12,431
tanks, and 1,031 pieces of heavy artillery.

The Soviet Union received thousands of tons of
American raw materials to feed its own factories as
well as fully fabricated equipment. In the two years
covered by this report we shipped the Soviets 28,356
jeeps, 218,888 trucks, 4,177 tanks and 252 pieces of
heavy artillery. The mobility and supply of the great
Red Army was further increased by American locomotives,
rails, and rolling stock. Aircraft sufficient to
equip two air forces the size of the Ninth were sent to
the Soviets.

Almost all of the equipment used by the revitalized
French Army, which had 12 fully equipped divisions
in action at the time of Germany's surrender, came
from the United States. The French tactical air force
which largely covered the operations of this army was
also American-equipped.

The amount of aid that could be given to China was
curtailed by the limitations of the air route over the
high altitudes and storms of the Himalayan Mountains.
The Chinese divisions and supporting troops which
played a major part n the opening of the Stilwell road
were American trained and equipped. The Chinese
armies which successfully stopped the Japanese
advance short of Chungking and Kunming had some
American equipment. Total aid to China now exceeds
%500,000,000, and to this should be added the
tremendous expenditures in war resources, planes,
and facilities required in India and Burma in order to
transport the material into China.

In return for lend-lease arms and matériel, United
States forces fighting over the world received reciprocal
aid known as reverse lend-lease from those Allies
in a position to give it. By the end of 1944 reciprocal
aid had reached a dollar value of 4 billions. It consisted
largely of housing facilities, base installations, and
foodstuffs. During the period of the build-up for the
European invasion, United States forces in the British
Isles received the equivalent of one shipload of equipment,
food, and matériel for every two shipped them
from the United States.

Rations of our troops in the United Kingdom were
supplemented by 436,000,000 pounds of foodstuffs,
principally fresh fruits and vegetables, grown in
Britain, and tea and cocoa and other products imported
from the Empire. For our forces in the Pacific and
Asia, Australia supplied 1,835,000,000 pounds of foodstuffs;
New Zealand, 800,000,000 pounds; and India,
524,000,000. A large percentage of our base construction

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in Australia, New Zealand, and India was
done under reverse lend-lease. From the British
refineries at Abadan, in the Persian Gulf, our forces
received 259,000,000 gallons of aviation fuel.

The Troops

Manpower Balance

The process of mobilization for this war reached its
peak and immediately started to decline with the surrender
of Germany. In the sumer of 1943 the firm
decision was reached to build up the Army to an effective
strength of 7,700,000 enlisted men believed necessary
to meet our strategic commitments.

At the close of the European war the operating
strength of the Army plus ineffectives was approximately
8,300,000. The ineffectives consisted of
500,000 men undergoing hospitalization, including
100,000 in the process of being discharged because
they were no longer fit for either active or limited service,
and 100,000 en route overseas as replacements,
in all totaling approximately 600,000 men.

This spring, as it became evident that victory in
Europe was close at hand, a new strength ceiling of
6,968,000 officers and men was set, based on the
requirements of war in the Pacific only. It then
became possible to proceed immediately with the
demobilization of those individuals who were most
entitled to discharge.

The technique for the mobilization of American
manpower in this war was unique. The special nature
of the war introduced many new factors. Perhaps
greater than any other single advantage of the United
Nations was the productive capacity of American
industry. It was therefore necessary not to cut too
deeply into the manpower of the Nation in the
process of acquiring the men urgently needed by the
Army and the Navy. We had the problems of arming
both ourselves and the Allied Nations while, at the
same time, we created huge armed forces necessary
to the successful prosecution of the war.
Furthermore, our lines of communication were to be
extended entirely around the world, requiring large
forces of men to work them and absorbing even larger
forces in transit over the thousands of miles to and
fro without profit to the military enterprise.

Fighting across the oceans, we needed a very powerful
Navy and a large merchant fleet to transport and
maintain our armies and to carry munitions to our
Allies. At the same time, it was our purpose to exploit
every possible scientific device and technique to
secure victory at the smallest cost in lives of our men.
These various efforts demanded large numbers of men
and women, and necessitated their allocation among
the various programs with exceeding care, so that the
right numbers of men would be doing the most
important things at the most important time. The
mere statement of this requirement fails to indicate
the exceeding difficulty involved in its application to
the special claims of each industry and the demands
of each theater commander. To resolve the conflicting
requirements posed a most difficult problem for a
democracy at war.

It was estimated that the absolute ceiling on the
number of American men physically fit for active war
service lay between 15 and 16 million. The requirements
of the naval and merchant shipping program
had to be given a high order of priority. The Army
decided to establish its strength ceiling at 7,700,000.
Before we could bring the enemy to battle we had to
secure our lines of communication and build our training
and service installations. Within this total strength
of the Army the minimum requirements of the
Service
Forces were set at 1,751,000. It was decided at the
outset that the first offensive blows we could deliver
upon the enemy would be through the air, and anticipated
that the heavier and more effective our air
assault, the sooner the enemy's capacity to resist
would be destroyed. So the Air Forces were authorized
to bring their strength to 2,340,000 men and
were given the highest priority for the best qualified
both physically and by educational and technical ability
of the military manpower pool.

Each theater of operations had requirements for
men over and above those allocated for its armies, air
forces, and service installations. The troop basis
allowed 423,000 men for these troops which would
be directly attached to theater headquarters and major
command installations throughout the world.

This left the Ground Forces with a maximum of
3,186,000 men within the limitations of the 7,700,000
effective troop strength. Yet when we entered the war
it was almost impossible to compute accurately how
many ground com,bat troops we would need to win.
The precise results to be attained by modern aerial
warfare could only be an educated guess.

It was known that we would take our heaviest casualties
both from gunfire and disease on the ground
where men must fight on the most intimate terms
with the enemy. We had to estimate accurately the
strength and the quality of the ground forces with
which the enemy nations could oppose us, and we
also had to estimate with a reasonable degree of accuracy
the forces the Allied Nations could put into the
battle. From 7 December 1941, until after Stalingrad
and El Alamein, it was almost impossible to forecast
what would be the results of the seesawing ground
battles raging in Eastern Europe and North Africa. In
addition, the decisions as to the relative strength of
our various combat arms were limited by the capacity
of our training establishment, which was then in
process of being expanded.

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With all these unknown quantities, in early 1942 we
established a troop basis of 3,600,000 men which
would permit the organization of 71 divisions: 59
infantry (including 18 National Guard), 10 armored,
and two cavalry. This force was the largest we then
had the ability to train, equip, and provide a nucleus
of trained officers and noncommissioned officers. In
mid-1942, when the original build-up in the United
Kingdom for the invasion of France and the North
African operation began to take shape, we found we
needed more and still more service troops. The
demand was insatiable. The over-all strength of the
Army by the end of the year had increased to
5,397,674 men. Throughout 1942, however, the planners
were at work estimating the requirements for
1943 which we believed would carry the Army to its
peak of mobilization and would give us the necessary
strength to force a victorious decision. The projection
was 8,248,000 officers and men. At first it was estimated
this would provide the Army with 105 divisions.
Later it became evident that the men for only
100 divisions could be found within this strength. By
the middle of 1943 we determined that this projected
mobilization might impose too great a strain on the
Nation's manpower, if all of the ambitious efforts
planned for the global war were to remain in balance.
Fortunately for our dilemma, Stalingrad was now past
history and the great Soviet armies were showing a
steadily increasing offensive power. he ceiling was
therefore reduced to 7,700,000 shortly after the TRIDENT
Conference in Washington, the meeting at
which the over-all strategy became sufficiently firm to
permit more precise planning. This amounted to a
reduction of 548,000 men. The projected number of
divisions was reduced to 90, including three special or
"light" divisions that were being trained for jungle and
mountain warfare. Later the 2d Cavalry Division, then
in North Africa, was inactivated to provide urgently
required service troops to support the amphibious
landing in southern France. At the same time the Air
Forces mobilization was fixed at 273 combat groups
containing five very heavy bombardment (B-29's and
32's), 96 heavy bombardment (Flying Fortresses and
Liberators), 26 medium bombardment, 8 light bombardment,
87 fighter, 27 troop carrier, and 24 reconnaissance groups.

On the face of it this appeared to be a critically
small ground force for a nation as large as ours.
Germany with a prewar population of 80,000,000 was
mobilizing 313 divisions; Japan was putting 120 in the
field; Italy 70; Hungary 23; Rumania 17; Bulgaria 18.
Among the major Allies,the Soviets had a program for
more than 550 divisions; the British for more than 50;
the Chinese more than 300; though their divisional
strength was often little more than regimental according
to our method of computation. We were, however,
second of the Allies in the mobilization of men and
women for military service, third among all the belligerent
nations. The Soviet war effort was putting
22,000,000 men and women into the fight. By the
time of their defeat, the Germans had mobilized
17,000,000. Our peak mobilization for the military
services was 14,000,000. The British Empire mobilized
12,000,000; China 6,000,000.

This war brought an estimated total of 93,000,000
men and women of the Axis and United Nations into
the conflict. And fortunately for us the great weight of
numbers was on the side of the United Nations. Total
Allied mobilization exceeded 62,000,000; total enemy
mobilization, 30,000,000. The figures show how heavily
the United States was concentrating on aerial warfare,
on the production and movement of arms for its
own troops and those of its Allies, and the meaning in
terms of manpower of waging war from 3,000 to
9,000 miles from our shores.

Our ground strength was, for the size of our population,
proportionately much smaller than that of the
other belligerents. On the other hand it was, in effect,
greater than a simple comparison of figures would
indicate, for we had set up a system of training indicate,
for we had set up a system of training individual
replacements that would maintain 89 divisions
of ground troops and 273 combat air groups at full
effective strength, enabling these units to continue in
combat for protracted periods. In past wars it had
been the accepted practice to organize as many divisions
as manpower resources would permit, fight
those divisions until casualties had reduced them to
bare skeletons, then withdraw them from the line and
rebuild them in a rear area. In 1918 the AEF was
forced to reduce the strength of divisions and finally
to disband newly arrived divisions in France in order
to maintain the already limited strength of those
engaged in battle. The system we adopted for this war
involved a flow of individual replacements from training
centers to the divisions so they would be constantly
at full strength. The Air Forces established a
similar flow to replace combat casualties and provide
relief crews.

This system enabled us to pursue tremendous naval
and shipping programs, the air bombardment programs
and unprecedented,k almost unbelievable, production
and supply programs, and at the same time to
gather the strength necessary to deliver the knock-out
blows on the ground. There were other advantages.
The more divisions an Army commander has under
his control, the more supporting troops he must maintain
and the greater are his traffic and supply problems.
If his divisions are fewer in number but maintained
at full strength, the power for attack continues
while the logistical problems are greatly simplified.

When we had planned the size of the Army it had
been impossible to foresee all of the ways in which
the circumstances of waging three-dimensional war
over the world would drain our manpower. It was

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clear that in this, as in all wars, men would fall victim
to enemy action and disease; others would become
ineffective because of sheer nervous and physical
weariness that comes after long months of active participation
in battle. But since the nature and technique
of war, if not the fundamentals, are ever
changing. it is impossible to forecast casualties in
one war from the experience of past one. Both the
intensity and the nature of our casualties have varied
from month to month throughout this war, depending
on the terrain and climate in which our forces
were fighting and the quality of enemy resistance.
Once an error was discovered it required months to
correct it because of the days and distances between
the training camps in the United States and the battle
fronts of the world. Yet the necessity of estimating
approximately a year in advance the numbers of
men that would be needed in the various elements of
the Army and the total over-all strength required that
both the casualty rates and the requirements for
transportation, rest, and rehabilitation be forecast accurately.

Some of the forecasts were accurate, others were
not. An exact forecast of the rates of ground force attrition
had to be tied directly to the effectiveness of such
factors as aerial bombardment, artillery, enemy
morale, enemy fighting ability, and a myriad others
that defied long-range calculation. As the war progressed
we learned, by unceasing study of the experience
we were gaining daily, what to expect in specific
situations. But even here these calculations could
never be made absolute. After the North African campaign,
it seemed that we could reasonably expect
heavy casualties in our armored units. So in preparation
for the Sicilian operation we built up a sizable
backlog of tank drivers and crewmen and at the same
time geared the training program in the United States
to this expectation.

But once ashore in Sicily our armor raced around
the island against feeble opposition and received few
casualties. Then we moved directly into the battle for
Italy's jagged terrain, where armor was difficult to
employ, and found ourselves with a surplus of armor
personnel and a critical shortage of infantrymen for
the job of clearing a clever and stubborn enemy out of
positions ideal for defense.

The final manpower crisis occurred during the prolonged
and very heavy fighting in the fall of 1944 and
the winter of 1944-45, both in Europe and in the
Philippines. However,our own tribulations of this
nature were much less serious, it is believed, than
those of our Allies and certainly of the German enemy,
whose divisions at times were reduced below 5,000.

In the Siegfried Line fighting prior to the final
advance to the Rhine, the weather was atrocious and
most of the troops had been continuously engaged
since the landing in Normandy in June. The lack of
port facilities prior to the opening of Antwerp to
Allied shipping made it impossible to maintain divisions
in normal corps reserve and thus permit the
rotation of units between the fighting line and comfortable
billets in rear areas. Divisions for this purpose
were available in England and in northwestern France,
but the state of the railroads and the flow of supplies
made it impossible to maintain them at the front. All
this resulted in a great strain on the fighting troops,
and when a shortage of replacements was added, the
situation grew very serious. It was just at this moment
that the Germans launched their final offensive effort
in the Ardennes.

This shortage in replacements at such a vital
moment was the final effect of long-accumulating
circumstances. The Army's manpower balance had
been disturbed in the fall of 1943 by shortages in
deliveries of inductees by the Selective Service
System, which amounted during one 3-month period
to about 100,000 men. A second factor was the miscalculation
after North Africa that resulted in too
many men being trained for the armored forces, the
artillery and special troops, and too few by far for the
infantry. Another factor was our failure in the early
phases of the war to compensate in the over-all
strength ceiling for the number of men who would
be required to fill the long overseas pipelines and the
time involved between the completion of the training
of the individual in the United States and his final
arrival in the division. Still another was the heavy
pressure brought to bear on the War Department to
hold down or reduce its demands for manpower. It
will be recalled that for more than a year a rather vigorous
attack was maintained against the War
Department's estimates of manpower requirements.
This limited our ability to get the men we needed
when we needed them.

The Air Force became involved in their own special
type of imponderables. It was found that casualties
suffered in the air had a serious reaction on the
fighting effectiveness unless they were replaced the
same day. Vacant chairs at mess had an unexpectedly
depressing effect on the survivors of heavy fighting.
The strain of frequent missions produced an unanticipated
degree of fatigue which required relief crews in
addition to the normal complement. It was finally
found necessary during the period of the Eighth Air
Force's heaviest fighting and losses to provide three
combat crews per operating plane and to return the
men to the United States after 25 missions. In the
Mediterranean where the losses at this time were
much lighter, 50
missions could be flown before the
strain demanded the relief of the crews.

For a considerable period in the southwest Pacific
and in the Aleutian Islands, the Air Forces carried an
almost intolerable burden of fighting and endurance.
The climate, the isolation, the insufficiency of numbers

--198--

in the face of Japanese opposition all combined
to make necessary a heavy increase in replacements.

Another unknown factor was discovered in the
tropical regions. It was found that the ground service
crews had to work all night virtually every night in
maintaining their planes, and were consequently
exposed to the malarial mosquito during her most
active hours. These men suffered so much from over-fatigue
and the cumulative effect of heavy doses of
atabrine that their replacement for recuperation
became necessary long before the estimated period.

To implement the replacement system we had
established the Ground and Service Force Replacement
Training Centers.2
It required more than a year
to train the many elements of a new division because
of the difficulties of teaching men and units the teamwork
so essential under the trying conditions of battle.
But it was possible and practicable in a much
shorter time to train an individual soldier so that he
was competent to join a veteran team as a replacement
where the battle experienced soldier can quickly
fit him into the divisional structure. At the replacement
training centers men were made ready to join
the divisions and replace casualties in a concentrated
training period of 17 weeks.At these training centers
they were given six weeks of basic military training
and intense physical conditioning. In the remaining
period they acquired competence in handling the
weapons with which they would fight or the equipment
with which they would work and in learning the
tactics of squads, platoons, companies, and battalions,
the tactical units which actually engaged in combat.

An infantryman, for example, became proficient in
his primary weapons and familiarized with the M1
rifle, the carbine, the hand grenade, the rifle grenade,
the automatic rifle, the .30 caliber medium machine
gun, the 60-mm mortar, and the two-man rocket
launcher. These were the weapons that every infantry
rifleman might be called upon to use. Not only were
men taught to handle their weapons with proficiency
in the replacement training centers, but they were
taught to take care of themselves personally. There
was intensive instruction in personal sanitation, malaria
control, processing of contaminated water, cooking,
and keeping dry in the open and all the other lore
that a good soldier must understand. But most important,
our replacements were taught the tricks of survival
in battle. As the Army acquired battle veterans,
both officers and enlisted men were returned to the
United States for duty as instructors in the replacement
training centers. These veterans, who learned
how to survive in combat, passed on knowledge to
new men and thereby increased both their effectiveness
and their chances of survival in their first experience
in combat. The training of replacements was
made as realistic as possible to manage in training.
Problems of street fighting, jungle fighting,l and close
combat were staged in realistic fashion with live
ammunition, and men learned to crawl under supporting
machine gun fire, to use grenades, and
advance under live artillery barrages just as they must
in battle. Although this training cost us a few casualties
in this country, it is certain that for every casualty
we took in this manner, we saved the lives of many
men in battle.

After the completion of their replacement training,
men received a furlough at home before reporting to
oversea replacement depots where their long journey
to the fighting fronts began. In the theaters of operations
they again staged through replacement depots
which were established in the rear of each army
group, army, and corps. When division commanders
needed new men to replace casualties, they called on
corps replacement depots and the men moved forward
to the line.

Where it was possible, the replacements were
absorbed in the division in its inactive periods, or in
regiments in reserve positions, and each new man was

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teamed up with a veteran so that he could learn to
know his squadmates before he saw action. But when
the battle was moving at a fast pace, replacements at
times had to join units engaged with the enemy.

By the spring of 1944, as most of the shortcomings
of the replacement system had become evident, the
War Department took vigorous corrective action. A
directive was sent to every theater requiring the establishment
of retraining centers so that every man in the
Army would be put to his most efficient use.

Since the early critical days of the mobilization, the
Service Forces, the Ground Force training commands,
and particularly the Air Forces had acquired great
numbers of the best qualified of our men. The shortage
of physically qualified men for infantry and
artillery became apparent about midway in the activation
of the new divisions. Later we started
approaching the bottom of the manpower barrel, and
it grew increasingly difficult to get men physically fit
for combat out of the remaining civilian manpower
pools. The only way in which the battle line could be
kept firm was with suitable men already in the Army.
To do this we speeded up the training program and
stripped the divisions training in the country of nearly
90,000 infantrymen. At this same time the overseas
divisions were returning increasing numbers of sick,
wounded, and injured men to the hospitals as the
intensity of the fighting developed and sickness took
its toll. It was our purpose to fill up the service units
with these hospitalized men who still could serve
their country but no longer could endure the
extreme hardships of the fox holes, and to send forward
fresh men to take their place, after a necessary
period of retraining.

In the United States we resolved to move out all
physically fit men from the service and training commands
and replace them with men who had been
wounded or weakened by disease and the hardships
of the front, with men who had been overseas so long
that they were entitled to return home under the rotation
policy, and where possible with civilians.

To reduce the requirements for military personnel
in the United States in order to send the maximum
number of physically fit men overseas, expert personnel
audit teams under the direction of the War
Manpower Board headed by Major General Lorenzo D.
Gasser were dispatched to every service and training
command. General Gasser's teams achieved remarkable results.

Through the economies effected by the personnel
audit teams and the policies established by the War
Department Personnel Division, 143,000 combat-fit
men in the Ground Forces training installations and
units, such as antiaircraft no longer necessary because
of our air superiority, were placed in retraining for use
as infantry. The Air Forces gave up another 65,000;
the Service Forces 25,000. From the defense commands
12,000 men were extracted and at the same
time the theaters produced 100,000 from their communication
zones for the retraining program.

To assist General Eisenhower in combing out able-bodied
men from his Communications Zone and
replacing them with battle casualties, Lt. Gen. Ben
Lear, who was then commanding the Army Ground
Forces, was made Deputy Commander of the
European Theater. This gave Eisenhower an outstanding
general officer who would devote his entire attention
to this critical readjustment of personnel.

To keep the over-all effective strength of the Army
within the troop basis of 7,700,000, the call on
Selective Service had been reduced from 160,000 a
month in early 1944 to 60,000 in the fall. But when
the replacement crisis reached its peak in the winter,
there was no remaining alternative but again to call on
Selective Service for more men. The call was
increased to 80,000 in February of this year and
100,000 a month thereafter to the end of June.

No opportunity was overlooked to replace men
with personnel of the Women's Army Corps, both in
the United States and overseas. The WAC, now in its
fourth year, presently has a strength of approximately
100,000, including 6,000 officers. Approximately
17,000 are on duty in the theaters. The Corps also
contributed greatly to the critical shortage of hospital
personnel by recruiting and training 100 general hospital
companies to assist Army doctors and nurses in
caring for the sick and wounded. Training of WAC personnel
was consolidated at Fort Des Moines in July
with the closing of the center at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.

Early in 1944 the Army imposed restriction on
the movement overseas of combat replacements
under the age of 19. It was the policy to send no
man under this age to the battle lines so long as others
were available. A few months later the policy
was stiffened to prevent the use of men under 19 in
infantry and armored units under any circumstances.
By fall the Army had exhausted these
sources, yet the need for men in General
Eisenhower's armies continued to grow more pressing.
The replacement training centers were filled
largely with men who had been inducted when they
reached the age of 18. It was a clear question of
either relinquishing our momentum in the battles of
Europe or using troops of this age. Certainly there is
no military reason for not doing so. Men of 18, 19,
and 20 make our finest soldiers. The excellent
Marine divisions are made up largely of men of these
age groups. They have stamina and recuperative
power far beyond that of older men and this physical
superiority often determines the issue in heavy
and prolonged fighting. The only reason for not
using 18-year-olds in combat was the expressed preference
of a great many Americans who felt there
were moral reasons for not exposing men so young

--200--

to the great risk of battle. The Army made every
effort to accede to these views, but when it became
a question of risking the victory or using men who
could make it possible, there was no alternative. A
new policy was then adopted to supersede the use
of men under 19 in combat as soon as Germany surrendered
and the terrific pressure on our available
manpower was relieved. Congress in extending the
Selective Service Act in May 1945 imposed a formal
requirement, that 18-year-olds have at least a total of
six months of training before they were sent into battle.

It is remarkable how exactly
the mobilization plan
fitted the requirements for victory. When Admiral
Doenitz surrendered surrendered the German Government, every
American division was in the operational theaters.
All but two had seen action; one had the mission of
securing the vital installations in the Hawaiian
Islands; the other was an airborne division in SHAEF
Reserve. To give General Eisenhower the impetus for
final destruction of the German armies of the west,
two divisions, already earmarked for future operations
in the Pacific, the 86th and 97th, were halted
on the West Coast in February, rushed across the
United States and onto fast ships for Europe. When
these troops left the New York Port of Embarkation
there were no combat divisions remaining in the
United States. The formed military forces of the
nation were completely committed overseas to bring
about our victory in Europe and keep sufficient pressure
on Japan so that she could not dig in and stave
off final defeat.

The significance of these facts should be carefully
considered. Even with two-thirds of the German Army
engaged by Russia, it took every man the Nation saw
fit to mobilize to do our part of the job in Europe and
at the same time keep the Japanese enemy under control
in the Pacific. What would have been the result
had the Red Army been defeated and the British
Islands invaded, we can only guess. The possibility is
rather terrifying.

Price of Victory

Even with our overwhelming concentration of air
power and fire power, this war has been the most
costly of any in which the Nation has been engaged.
The victory in Europe alone cost us 772,626 battle
casualties of which 160,045 are dead. The price of victory
in the Pacific was 170,596 including 41,322 dead.
Army battle deaths since 7 December 1941 were
greater than the combined losses, Union and
Confederate, of the Civil War. I present the following
comparisons of the battle deaths we have suffered in
all our wars so that there can be no misunderstanding
of the enormous cost of this conflict, for which we
were so completely unprepared.
[See Center
of Military History for updated numbers.
Also note that Gen. Marshall carefully limits his comparison to
"battle deaths". Disease has always been a major source of
casualties in war. --HyperWar]

Number ofmonthduration

Totalbattledeaths

Averagebattle deathsper month

American Revolution

80

4,044

50

War of 1812

30

1,877

62

Mexican War

20

1,721

86

Civil War (Union Losses)

48

110,070

2,293

Civil War (Confederate Losses)

48

74,524

1,552

Spanish-American

4

345

86

World War I

19

50,510

2,658

World War II

44

201,367

4,576

Army casualties in all theaters from 7 December
1941 until the end of the period of this report total
943,222, including 201,367 killed, 570,783 wounded,
114,205 prisoners, 56,867 missing; of the total
wounded, prisoners, or missing more than 633,200
have returned to duty, or have been evacuated to the
United States.

The great strategic bombardment strikes on
Germany and the inauguration of the Mediterranean
campaign pushed our total casualty rate above 5,000 a
month in 1943. In the first five months of 1944 the
increasing tempo of the air attack and the fighting in
Italy drove our losses,killed, wounded, missing, and
prisoners, to 13,700 men a month. Once ashore in
Western Europe, the casualty rate leaped to 48,000 a
month and increased to 81,000 by December. The
average for the last seven months of the year was 59,000.

Out in the Pacific the advance on Japan cost 3,200
men a month throughout 1944. In the first seven
months of this year the rate increased to 12,750 as we
closed on the Japanese Islands.

The heaviest losses have been on the ground
where the fighting never ceases night or day.
Disregarding their heavy losses to disease and exposure,
the combat divisions have taken more than 81
percent of all our casualties. However, though the
percentage of the total is small, the casualties among
the combat air crews have been very severe. By the
end of July the Army Air Forces had taken nearly
120,000 casualties. Of this total 36,698 had died. The
air raids over enemy territory gave Air Force casualties
the heaviest weighting of permanency. The
wounded of the Ground Forces drove their total
casualties high, but with the exceptional medical
care the Army has had in this war, the wounded had
good chances to recover.

The following break-down for the European Theater
of Operations (which does not include Italy) demonstrates
where our casualties were taken:

Assignment

Number ofCasualties

Percentageof Casualties

Theater troops

1,094

.18

Army group, army and corps troops

60,998

10.35

Infantry divisions

392,990

66.69

Armored divisions

62,417

10.60

Airborne divisions

22,008

3.73

Total combat divisions

477,415

81.02

Total field forces

539,507

91.55

--201--

Assignment

Number ofCasualties

Percentageof Casualties

Troops under air commanders

1,699

.29

Strategic air forces

37,500

6.36

Tactical air forces

6,346

1.08

Total air forces

45,545

7.73

Communications zone troops

4,217

.72

Grand total

589,269

100.00

In the Army at large, the infantry comprises only
20.5 percent of total strength overseas, yet it has
taken 70 percent of the total casualties. Enemy fire is
no respector of rank in this war: 10.2 percent of the
casualties have been officers, a rate slightly higher
than that for enlisted men.

The improvement of battle surgery and medical
care, on the other hand, reduced the rate of death
from wounds to less than one-half the rate in World
War I, and permitted more than 58.8 percent of men
wounded in this war to return to duty in the theaters
of operations.

As staggering as our casualties have been, the
enemy forces opposing us suffered many times more
heavily; 1,592,000 Germans, Italians, and Japanese
troops were killed for the 201,367 American soldiers
who died. It is estimated that permanently disabled
enemy total 303,700. We captured and disarmed
8,150,447 enemy troops.

The break-down of German and Italian losses
against American, British, and French forces in the
war in Europe follows:

Battledead

Permanentlydisabled

Captured

Total

Tunisia

19,600

19,000

130,000

168,600

Sicily

5,000

2,000

7,100

14,100

Italy

86,000

15,000

357,089

458,089

Western Front

263,000

49,000

17,614,794

7,926,794

Total

373,600

85,000

18,108,983

8,567,583

1 Includes 3,404,949 disarmed enemy forces.

The break-down of Japanese losses in the Eastern
battlefronts, including China, since Pearl Harbor is as follows:

Battledead

Permanentlydisabled

Captured

Total

Southern Pacific

684,000

69,000

19,806

72,806

Central Pacific

273,000

6,000

17,472

296,472

India-Burma

128,000

38,000

3,097

169,097

China

1,26,000[sic]

126,000

1,059

253,059[sic]

Aleutians

8,000

1,000

30

9,030

Total

1,219,000

240,000

41,464

1,500,464

Constant efforts were made to ameliorate conditions
under which American prisoners of war were
held in Germany. The number of Americans taken
prisoner by Germany and her satellites in the
European war reached a final total of approximately
98,000. Until the final stages of administrative disintegration
brought about by the success of our arms, it
was possible to make our protests known and to
secure some measure of relief for United States personnel
in enemy hands. Nevertheless, Germany consistently
failed to respect its obligations to provide a
proper scale of food and clothing for Allied prisoners.
When our forces overran prisoner camps, it was discovered
that outrageous brutalities and atrocities had
been inflicted upon Allied personnel. Every case is
being investigated. The perpetrators will be punished.

Every effort was made to better the situation of
American prisoners of war in Japanese hands but they
produced only limited results. Though the United
States did secure from the Japanese Government an
agreement to accept the
Geneva
Prisoners of War Convention, to which Japan is not a party, in treatment
of American prisoners and civilian internees,
that Government failed
to observe its obligations.
With the cooperation of the Soviet Government there
was inaugurated in 1944 a service for transmission of
mail and some supplies to prisoners of war and civilian
internees in the Far East. Funds were made available,
to the maximum extent permitted by the
Japanese Government, for prisoners of war and civilian
internees in Japan proper, China, Manchuria, and
the Netherlands East Indies. The Japanese did not
agree to exchange sick and wounded prisoners of war,
and our prisoners taken by the Japanese enemy were
recovered only as result of successful military operations.
Nearly 16,000 Americans were taken prisoner
in the fighting with Japan.

American troops who have been prisoners of the
enemy are returned to the United States, with the
highest priority next to that of sick and wounded, and
high-point personnel of the forward combat units
who are being returned for discharge. Rehabilitation
treatment has been given them both overseas and in
the United States. Sixty days temporary duty at home
is granted each prisoner to permit him to rest and
been promoted one grade since their release.
Opportunity also is being given to all prisoners recovered
in Europe to achieve the rank or grade which
they presumably would have acquired but for the fact
of capture. Many of these former prisoners of war are
being discharged on the point system and other separation procedures.

The remarkable reduction in the percentage of
deaths from battle wounds is one of the most direct
and startling evidences of the great work of the
Army medical service. In the last two years Army
hospitals treated 9,000,000 patients; another
2,000,000 were treated in quarters and more than
80,000,000 cases passed through the dispensaries
and received outpatient treatment. This tremendous

--202--

task was accomplished by 45,000 Army doctors
assisted by a like number of nurses and by more
than one-half million enlisted men, including battalion-aid
men, whose courage and devotion to duty
under fire has been as great as that of the fighting
men they assisted.

One of the great achievements of the Medical
Department was the development of penicillin therapy
which has already saved the lives of thousands.
Two years ago penicillin, because of an extraordinary
complicated manufacturing process, was so scarce
the small amounts available were priceless. Since then
mass production techniques have been developed and
the Army is now using 2,000,000 ampules a month.

Despite the fact that United States troops lived and
fought in some of the most disease-infested areas of
the world, the death rate from nonbattle causes in the
Army in the last two years was approximately that of
the corresponding age group in civil life--about 3
per 1,000 per year. The greater exposure of troops
was counterbalanced by the general immunization
from such diseases as typhoid, typhus, cholera,
tetanus, smallpox, and yellow fever, and, obviously
by the fact that men in the Army were selected for
their physical fitness.

The comparison of the nonbattle death rate in this
and other wars is impressive. During the Mexican
War, 10 percent of officers and enlisted men died each
year of disease; the rate was reduced to 7.2 percent of
Union troops in the Civil War; to 1.6 percent in the
Spanish War and the Philippine Insurrection; to 1.3
percent in World War I; and to 0.6 percent of the
troops in this war.

Insect-borne diseases had a great influence on the
course of operations throughout military history. Our
campaigns in the remote Pacific Islands would have
been far more difficult than they were except for the
most rigid sanitary discipline and the development of
highly effective insecticides and repellents. The most
powerful weapon against disease-bearing lice, mosquitoes,
flies, fleas, and other insects was a new
chemical compound commonly known as DDT. In
December 1943 and early 1944, a serious typhus epidemic
developed in Naples. The incidence had
reached 50 cases a day. DDT dusting stations were set
up and by March more than a million and a quarter
persons had been processed through them. These
measures and an extensive vaccination program
brought the epidemic under control within a month.
Shortly after the invasion of Saipan an epidemic of
dengue fever developed among the troops. After
extensive aerial spraying of DDT in mosquito-breeding
areas, the number of new cases a day fell more than 80
percent in two weeks. The danger of scrub typhus in
the Pacific Islands and in Burma and China was
reduced measurably by the impregnation of clothing
with dimethyl phthalate.

The treatment of battle neurosis progressed steadily
so that between 40 and 60 percent of men who broke
down in battle returned to combat and another 20 to
30 percent returned to limited duties. In the early
stages of the War less than 10 percent of these men
were reclaimed for any duty.

The development of methods of handling whole
blood on the battlefield was a great contribution to
battle surgery. Though very useful, plasma is not nearly
as effective in combating shock and preparing
wounded for surgery as whole blood. Blood banks
were established in every theater and additional quantities
were shipped by air from the United States, as a
result of the contribution of thousands of patriotic
Americans. An expendable refrigerator was developed
to preserve blood in the advanced surgical stations for
a period of usefulness of 21 days.

So that no casualty is discharged from the Army
until he has received full benefit of the finest hospital
care this Nation can provide, the Medical Service has
established a reconditioning program. Its purpose is
to restore to fullest possible physical and mental
health any soldier who has been wounded or fallen ill
in the service of his country.

To insure that men are properly prepared for return
to civilian life the Army established 25 special convalescent
centers. At these centers men receive not only
highly specialized medical treatment, but have full
opportunity to select any vocational training or recreational
activity, or both, they may desire. Men, for
example, who have been disabled by loss of arms or
legs are fitted with artificial limbs and taught to use
them skillfully in their former civilian occupation or
any new one they may select. Extreme care is taken to
insure than men suffering from mental and nervous
disorders resulting from combat are not returned to
civil life until they have been given every possible
treatment and regained their psychological balance.

Beyond the Call Of Duty

It is impossible for the Nation to compensate for the
services of a fighting man. There is no pay scale that
is high enough to buy the services of a single soldier
during even a few minutes of the agony of combat,
the physical miseries of the campaign, or of the
extreme personal inconvenience of leaving his home
to go out to the most unpleasant and dangerous spots
on earth to serve his Nation. But so that our troops
might know that the Nation realizes this simple truth,
the Army made it a determined policy to decorate
men promptly for arduous service and for acts of gallantry
while they were fighting.

Exclusive of the Purple Heart, which a man receives
when he is wounded, often right at the forward dressing
station, the Army awarded 1,400,409 decorations

--203--

for gallantry and meritorious service since we entered
the war. The Nation's highest award, the
Congressional Medal of Honor,
was made to 239 men,
more than 40 percent of whom died in their heroic
service; 3,178 Distinguished Service Crosses have
been awarded; 630 Distinguished Service Medals;
7,192 awards of the Legion of Merit; 52,831 Silver
Stars; 103,762 Distinguished Flying Crosses; 8,592
Soldiers Medals; 189,309 Bronze Stars; and 1,034,676
Air Medals. Exclusive of the Air Medal and the Purple
Heart, the Infantry received 34.5 percent of all decorations,
the Air Corps 34.1 percent, the Field Artillery
10.7 percent, Medical Personnel 6.0 percent, and all
other arms and services 14.7 percent.

The War Department has designated 34 specific
campaigns during the course of this war. For participation
in each of these campaigns a small star of
bronze metal is authorized to be worn on the theater
service ribbon, a star of silver metal to be worn in lieu
of five bronze stars. A small bronze arrowhead is
awarded for those who make combat parachute
jumps or glider landings or who are in the assault
wave of amphibious landings. For example, the men
who fought with the 1st, 3d, and 9th Infantry
Divisions form the invasion of North Africa to the
defeat of Germany are entitled to war the bronze
assault arrowhead and eight bronze battle stars. In
addition to the specific campaigns approved by the
War Department, a theater commander may authorize
additional bronze stars for antisubmarine, air, and
ground combat participation not included within
these campaigns.

Since my last report, two infantry badges and a
medical badge have been authorized. The expert
infantry badge was awarded to those who demonstrated
proficiency in their specific duties after completion
of training. The combat infantry badge was
given to those who have shown outstanding skill as
infantrymen in combat and the medical badge wa
presented to recognize the medical personnel who
went into combat with infantry troops unarmed to
serve the injured.

Battle participation stars had been awarded for the
following campaigns up to the time of the Japanese surrender:

European-African-Middle Eastern Theater

Egypt-Libya

11 June 1942 to 12 February 1943

Air Offensive, Europe

4 July 1942 to 5 June 1944

Algeria-French Morocco

8 to 11 November 1942

Tunisia:

Air

8 November 1942 to 13 May 1943

Ground

17 November 1942 to 13 May 1943

Sicily:

Air

14 May to 17 August 1943

Ground

9 July to 17 August 1943

Naples-Foggia:

Air

18 August 1943 to 21 January 1944

Ground

9 September 1943 to 21 January 1944

Rome-Arno

22 January to 9 September 1944

Normandy

6 June to 24 July 1944

Northern France

25 July to 14 September 1944

Southern France

15 August to 14 September 1944

North Apennines

10 September 1944 to 4 April 1945

Rhineland

15 September 1944 to 21 March 1945

Ardennes

16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945

Central Europe

22 March to 11 May 1945

Po Valley

5 April to 8 May 1945

Asiatic-Pacific Theater

Central Pacific

7 December 1941 to 6 December 1943

Burma

7 December 1941 to 26 May 1942

Philippine Islands

7 December 1941 to 26 May 1942

East Indies

1 January to 22 July 1942

India-Burma

2 April 1942 to 28 January 1943

Air Offensive, Japan

17 April 1942 (campaign not yet completed)

Aleutian Islands

3 June 1942 to 24 August 1943

China

4 July 1942 (campaign not yet completed)

Papua

23 July 1942 to 23 January 1943

Guadalcanal

7 August 1942 to 21 February 1943

New Guinea

24 January 1943 to 31 December 1944*

Northern Solomons

22 February 1943 to 21 November 1944*

Central Pacific
[Campaign absent from original list]

7 December 1941 to 6 December 1943

Eastern Mandates:

Air

7 December 1943 to 16 April 1944*

Ground

31 January to 14 June 1944*

Bismark Archipelago

15 December 1943 to 27 November 1944*

Western Pacific:

Air

17 April 1944 to (campaign not yet completed)

Ground

15 June 1944 to (campaign not yet completed)

Southern Philippines

17 October 1944 to 4 July 1945*

Luzon

9 January 1945 to 15 July 1945

Central Burma

29 January 1945 to 15 July 1945

Ryukyus

26 March 1945 to 2 July 1945*

Information and Recreation

In this war a very special effort was made to care for
the minds of men in service as well as their bodies.
This is continuing during the occupation and demobilization
period. Millions of Americans have now been
overseas in many parts of the world for several years.
The conditions under which they lived during the
war, the exposure to extreme danger, the monotony,
the starvation for the comforts of living to which citizens
of our Nation are accustomed placed heavy
strains on their mental and nervous processes. From
the beginning, the Army recognized that this strain
must be counteracted by healthy informational and
recreational activities.

At first, responsibility for both information and
recreation was given to the Special Services Division
of the Army Service Forces. Later to permit greater
specialization, this section was relieved of its informational
duties and the Information and Education
Division was created.

The Special Services Division continues to establish
policy and assist the theaters in establishing and operating

--204--

recreational and entertainment programs. Each
month it has shipped to the theaters, for example,
more than 4,000,000 copies of books selected by the
Council on Books in Wartime, and 10,000,000 magazines
to keep troops supplied with reading material.
In each theater a Special Service officer directs the distribution
of motion pictures, athletic and other recreational
equipment, the routing of entertainment
groups selected by the United Service Organizations,
and the activities of the Red Cross Military Welfare
Services Program. In each unit other Special Service
officers are assigned to make the fullest use of all facilities
offered by the theater command and improvise,
wherever possible, additional recreational and entertainment programs.

During the past two years the theaters of operations
have done outstanding jobs in organizing shows
and athletic programs of their own with soldier talent
to supplement that shipped form the United States.

The Information and Education program is
designed to keep our troops abreast of developments
in their own areas and throughout the world. This
division publishes the magazine Yank, and assists
the overseas theaters in publishing their own daily
and weekly newspapers. At the present time there
are eight editions of the daily newspaper
Stars and
Stripes published in England, France, Germany, Italy,
Africa, and Hawaii. In the Asiatic theater there is a
weekly newspaper known as the CBI Roundup,
published at New Delhi.

For men still in hospitals who are separated from
their units by reason of injury or illness, Information
and Education Division also publishes the weekly journal
Outfit devoted solely to bringing news of combat
and service units to their absent members, who
otherwise lost all touch with their organizations and
five thousand copies of this magazine are distributed
each week in 154 hospitals all over the world.

The Information and Education Division also conducts
periodic surveys of how our troops are thinking--studies
which the War Department utilizes in
determining policies which affect troops individually.
The point system of discharge was based directly on
these expert surveys of soldier opinions.

It operates the Army News Service, an objective
digest of United States press association and newspaper
reports radioed over the world each day to supply
news for Army newspapers and mimeographed or
typewritten daily news sheets which are made available
to troops by unit Information and Education officers.
Information and Education also prepares and distributes
radio programs for broadcast to troops
throughout the world. During the great Campaign
these programs were made available even in the most
forward areas by mobile radio transmitters. This is the
well-known Armed Forces Radio Service radio which
carries a flavor of home to Americans from Germany
to the islands of the far Pacific.

Through the Armed Forces Institute, which has
established 10 oversea branches, troops have an
opportunity to improve their educational or technical
background. Prior to the end of the war more than a
million members of the Armed Forces had taken
advantage of these correspondence courses, self-teaching
materials, and off-duty classes.

The information program also includes the small
pocket-sized soldier guides to the customs and languages
of the countries where our men serve [for example, see:
Short Guide to Iraq],
the weekly news map series published world-wide, and
educational posters covering a wide field of subjects
from promotion of bond sales among the troops to
malaria control.The division also distributes information
films such as Colonel Frank Capra's
"Why We
Fight" series, a series known as "GI Movies" and the
Army-Navy Screen Magazine. "GI Movies" is a compilation
of existing commercial short subjects and those
produced by the Army Pictorial Service, such as comedies,
travelogues, and similar educational subjects.
The Army-Navy Screen Magazine is periodic compilation
of newsreel and new short subjects of special
interest to troops. It includes the "By Request" films.
A group of men in New Guinea wanted to see pictures
of a snowstorm. Soldiers all over the world asked for
pictures of the Statue of Liberty. One enlisted man
wanted to hear a quartet sing "Down By the Old Mill
Stream." These and similar request are met in the
Army-Navy Screen Magazine.

The big job ahead for both Information and
Education and Special Services is the provision of
constructive activity for troops in Europe awaiting
return to the United States, and serving in our occupation forces.

At the present time, there is in full swing in the
European theater a tremendous program of education
and recreation to make sure that American soldiers
have healthy and profitable activities for their spare
time in the months they must wait for shipping space
to become available to return them to the United
States for discharge.

Three extensive programs offering educational
opportunities to all who would take advantage of
them have been established. The broadest is the
school program for men in the smaller units now
operating in both the European and Mediterranean
theaters. These schools are conducted on the battalion
or regimental level. Prior to V-E Day theaters had
been shipped sufficient text books by the Armed
Forces Institute to get these schools promptly under
way. The courses have been selected form the entire
range of secondary and vocational schooling, including
subjects at the junior college level--algebra, elementary
chemistry, history, languages, etc. Literacy
training is also being provided. Individual soldiers may

--205--

select any course of study they wish and pursue it in
their own units while awaiting shipment home.

Opportunity for advanced study and technical
refresher courses have also been provided. A centralized
technical school has been established at
Tidworth, England, with a capacity of 4,00 students
for each two-month period. It opened in mid-August
to troops and WAC personnel who wish to refresh
their vocational skills prior to returning to their civilian
jobs. Entrance qualifications require that applicants
have three or more years of apprentice training
in their craft. SA university center has been established
at Shrivenham, England, and another in France. These
centers conduct a series of five 2-month courses at
college level. Each has a capacity of 4,000 students
per period. The qualifications for entrance in these
courses are at least a high school education.
Instruction is by Army personnel chosen for their
civilian experience in education and these will be supplemented
by eminent United States educators. Men
who do not want to enroll in any of the conducted
courses will still have the opportunity to take correspondence courses.

Troops on occupational duty now have little leisure,
but as Europe stabilizes they will find more and more
opportunity for profitable work. It is anticipated that
1,250,000 men and women in the European theater
will take advantage of this opportunity to improve
their education.

At the same time the recreational programs will be
carried on at full pace. An extra allocation of equipment
was on hand in Europe the day of German surrender.
Baseball, football, golf, swimming, tennis, and
other equipment that Americans use in sport is available
to the troops. Motion pictures are on hand everywhere
since fighting ceased. Numerous post
exchanges have been established throughout the
occupation zone. The exchanges offer food and
refreshment as they do in the United States and sales
counters where soldiers can buy Swiss watches,
French perfumes, and other authentic European
goods at noninflationary prices.

In the Pacific both the educational and recreational
programs will be stepped up to meet the need of
troops in occupation there.

Army Management

During the past two years the contributions to the
war effort of three major commands and the War
Department General Staff have been on a vast scale.

The Air Forces have developed in a remarkable manner.
Young commanders and staff officers, catapulted
into high rank by reason of the vast expansion, and
then seasoned by wide experience, now give the Air
arm the most effective form of military leadership--the
vigorous direction of young men with the knowledge
and judgment of veterans. Theoretical conceptions
have been successfully demonstrated in action
and modified or elaborated accordingly, new conceptions
are welcomed and quickly tested; the young
pilots and combat crews daily carry out the dangerous
and difficult missions with a minimum of losses and a
maximum of destruction for the enemy. In personnel,
in planes, technique, and leadership, the Army Air
Forces of more than two million men have made an
immense contribution to our victories. Through
aggressive tactics and the concept of strategical precision
bombing they have made these victories possible
with a minimum of casualties.

The Army Ground Force Command performed the
extremely difficult mission of organizing our largest
Army in an amazingly short time and at the same time
training another 1,100,000 men to replace casualties.
The Ground Forces headquarters has just completed a
cycle in its operations. It began with the organization
and training of the divisions, then deployment of the
Ground Forces overseas and replacement of their
casualties. Finally, in June of this year the Ground
Forces began receiving the first of these divisions
back under its control after the victory in Europe.

The tasks of the Army Service Forces have been difficult
and complex beyond description. The efforts of
this organization are only vaguely appreciated by the
public, or even by the rank and file of the Army itself.
The requirements for te support of the Army and the
great oversea operations impinge frequently on conditions
at home,giving rise to a succession of criticisms,
largely unjustified in my opinion, since the critics
seldom are aware of the salient facts and basic
requirements. With thousands of miles of communications
between the United States and the battlefronts,
the necessity for reserve stocks here and
abroad and the sudden rapid changes of requirements
in various theaters have made it necessary for the
Service Forces to be prepared for the unexpected. A
minute change at the center of the circle usually
results in miles of alterations along the circumference.

One consideration in particular is often ignored by
the civilian in judging a condition which interferes or
restricts with the daily life of America. The burden of
supplying the fighting man at the place and at the
time of his requirement rests squarely on a responsible
officer. Excuses and explanations are not acceptable
to the soldier and would not be tolerated by the
political leaders, however inconsistent with the previous
pressures on the home front which may have
been in a measure responsible for the shortcomings.

The Service Forces have accomplished a prodigious
task during the past two years in the supply of food,
clothing, munitions, transportation, including the
operation of a fleet of 1,537 ships; in the handling of
pay and allowances amounting to 22.4 billion dollars,

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in the processing of approximately 75 billion dollars
in contracts; in the management of 3,700 post or cantonment
installations in continental United States; in
the operation of great base port organizations centered
in Boston, New York, Hampton Roads, New
Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle; in
handling 7,370,000 men and 101,750,000 measurement
tons of cargo; in the administration of the medical
service which has treated 9,083,00 hospital
cases and operated 791,000 hospital beds; in the
direction of post exchanges now doing a monthly
business of 90 million dollars and the organization and
management of entertainment and educational opportunities;
in the conduct of the administration of the
Army and finally in the enormous tasks of redeployment
and demobilization.

In the midst of handling this problem we have the
constantly increasing pressure of families of the men
for their release from the service. This has proved particularly
vexatious in the case of high-point men on
duty in the installations at home which must at this
time bear the triple burden of supplying the requirements
of the Pacific war, carrying out the regroupment
and redeployment of troops in the United States,
and accomplishing the demobilization of thousands of
men daily. For the actual discharge of men, the
required time for the preparation of papers, records,
and accounts, and final payments has been reduced
from approximately the 12 days of World War I to a
minimum of 2 days, but even so the slightest increase
over the minimum period produces a storm of
protest. These reactions would ordinarily be accepted
as normal to America but at this particular time they
are bound to have a very disturbing effect on the
morale of the forces overseas.

Almost as complex as the administrative management
of these tremendous fighting forces has been
the strategic direction of our global operations by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Without the endless effort and the
clear thinking of the officers in the various special
groups or agencies attached directly to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff to assist them in planning our operations
and allocating our resources correctly, the great
victories to which we are becoming accustomed
would have been impossible.

I wish to make official acknowledgment of the support
given me by the War Department General and
Special Staffs, which has been beyond all praise in the
understanding and handling of the countless problems
of global warfare. Denied both public appreciation
of their work and the desired opportunity for
command in the field, these officers have made a great
and selfless contribution to the war effort. The duration
of the war has permitted a number of these officers
to be given overseas assignments and at the same
time, veterans of the fighting could be recalled to duty
in the War Department.

No comment is necessary here to inform the public
of the leadership given the American Armies by
the Commanders-in-Chief in the theaters of operations.
Their work has been, in my opinion, well nigh
faultless considering the hazards and unexpected
developments of war on the vast scale in which it
has been conducted. I am sure that in years to come
our people will take constantly increasing pride in
the splendid contribution of these officers to the
prestige of America and the best interests of the
world generally.

To the Members of Congress I wish to express my
thanks for the complete support given the Army by
their willingness to provide the huge sums of money
and the necessary legislative authorizations requested
by the War Department for the prosecution of the war.

During the past two years the Secretary of War has
supported the Army with a courage and a singular
integrity of purpose to a degree rarely evidenced in
public officials.

I cherish a feeling of deepest gratitude for the confidence
President Roosevelt gave me and for the stern
resolution with which he met the critical periods of
our operations. It might be considered an interesting
historical fact to record that during the landing in
Normandy he made no request at any time for information
other than that furnished him as a matter of
routine and that he did not put a single question to me
or General Eisenhower during the critical moments of
the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes. The confidence
he gave to the management of the Army was a
tremendous source of assurance to the officers of the
War Department.

To my new Commander-in-Chief I am indebted for the
strong support he gave immediately on assuming office
to the efforts of the Army to bring the War in Europe
and the Pacific to an early and successful conclusion.

Demobilization

The Army is now involved in the process of demobilizing
the tremendous forces it gathered to win the
victory. This requires the return of millions of troops
to the United States and the processing of their discharge.
It means the cessation of the munitions production
which has absorbed most of our energies and
resources during the last five years.

The demobilization, like the mobilization, affects
every phase of national life. Until such time as the
authorized governmental agencies determine the policy
which will regulate demobilization, the War
Department must proceed under existing legislation
and policy to carry on this process in an orderly manner.
The disturbance to our national economy must be
kept to the minimum.

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We hope during the twelve months immediately following
the cessation of hostilities to have discharged
from the Army at least 5,000,000 men and officers.
The determining factor throughout this period will be
transportation. Soon thereafter, however, legislation
must determine the strength of the Army for the
immediate future.

The demobilization first got underway with the
German surrender. It began simultaneously with the
projected full scale redeployment for the final operations
in the Pacific which we had planned in the event
the Japanese resisted to a suicidal end. In this period
first priority on our available shipping had to go for
the redeployment--the scheduled movement of men
and matériel to the Pacific directly from Europe or via
the United States.

The day Japan capitulated orders were issued from the
War Department suspending the redeployment operation
throughout the world. Theater commanders were
immediately directed to devote all facilities not required
for the movement of occupational troops into Japan and
elsewhere in the Far East to the demobilization.

The citizen Army had been recruited by selection of
men on the basis of individual fitness for military duty
and comparative essentiality in the Nation's economy.
Accordingly, it was decided to discharge men individually
rather than by units. An Army-wide survey was
conducted to determine the consensus among the
enlisted men as to the basis for determining discharge.
The opinion was that those who have served longest,
fought the hardest, and who have children should be
permitted to leave the Army first. As a result the point
system of returning men for discharge wherever they
are on duty was established.

This system gives credit for length of Army service,
overseas service, certain decorations, battle stars and
not to exceed three dependent children under 18.
The points are computed form 16 September 1940.
Originally a minimum requirement of 85 points was
established. Now the point system is revised to keep
the demobilization steady and orderly.

The selection of soldiers eligible for discharge was
made the responsibility of the various overseas commanders.
As troops return they are sent to disposition
centers near the embarkation ports and then move on
in groups to Army stations near their homes. Here
they receive a final screening and the separation center
should usually be able to accomplish their discharge
within 48 hours. In this final administrative
procedure the soldier receives his mustering-out pay,
his uniform, his discharge certificate, his lapel button,
a separation record which summarizes his military service
and qualifications, and his fare home. He also
receives a pamphlet on veteran rights and benefits
and advice regarding the agencies which can assist
him in locating a job. Nothing is overlooked which
will help the returning veteran to help himself.

Soldiers whose health or fitness has been impaired
in the service of the country will not be discharged
until everything possible to modern medical science
has been done for their rehabilitation.

The War Department has now projected its demobilization
schedules as far as it can under existing legislation
and policies. The next moves and the next
objectives are political more than military. They
require decisions on that level. The War Department
can only submit recommendations and await further instructions.

Our present national policies require us to: Maintain
occupation forces in Europe and the Pacific; prepare
for a possible contribution of forces to a world security
organization; maintain national security while the
world remains unstable and later on a more permanent
or stable basis.

These policies require manpower. Yet at the same
time it is the policy of the nation to completely demobilize
the wartime army as rapidly as possible. Unless
hundreds of thousands of men of the wartime forces
are to remain in service at home and overseas, more
permanent decisions must be made.

The War Department recommends that the occupation
forces and the U.S. complement in the
International security force be composed as much as
possible of volunteers. This can be accomplished by
establishing now a new permanent basis for the regular
military establishment. If this recommendation and
those which I will now discuss in detail for establishing
a peacetime security policy are now adopted by
the Congress, demobilization can proceed uninterrupted
until all men now in temporary service have
returned to their homes.

For the Common Defense

To fulfill its responsibility for protecting this Nation
against foreign enemies, the Army must project its
planning beyond the immediate future. In this connection
I feel that I have a duty, a responsibility, to present
publicly at this time my conception, from a military
point of view, of what is required to prevent
another international catastrophe.

For years men have been concerned with individual
security. Modern nations have given considerable
study and effort to the establishment of social security
systems for those unable to unwise enough to provide
for themselves. But effective insurance against
the disasters which have slaughtered millions of people
and leveled their homes is long overdue.

We finish each bloody war with a feeling of acute
revulsion against this savage form of human behaviour,
and yet on each occasion we confuse military preparedness
with the causes of war and then drift
almost deliberately into another catastrophe. This

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error of judgment was defined long ago by
Washington. He proposed to endow this Nation at the
outset with a policy which should have been a reasonable
guarantee of our security for centuries. The
cost of refusing his guidance is recorded in the sacrifice
of life and in the accumulation of mountainous
debts. We have continued impractical. We have
ignored the hard realities of world affairs. We have
been purely idealistic.

We must start, I think, with a correction of the tragic
misunderstanding that a security policy is a war policy.
War has been defined by a people who have
thought a lot about it--the Germans. They have started
most of the recent ones. The German soldier-philosopher
Clausewitz described war as a special violent
form of political action. Frederic of Prussia, who
left Germany the belligerent legacy which has now
destroyed her, viewed war as a device to enforce his
will whether he was right or wrong. He held that with
an invincible offensive military force he could win any
political argument. This is the doctrine Hitler carried
to the verge of complete success. It is the doctrine of
Japan. It is a criminal doctrine, and like other forms of
crime, it has cropped up again and again since man
began to live with his neighbors in communities and
nations. There has long been an effort to outlaw war
for exactly the same reason that man has outlawed
murder. But the law prohibiting murder does not of
itself prevent murder. It must be enforced. The enforcement
power, however, must be maintained on a strictly
democratic basis. There must not be a large standing
army subject to the behest of a group of schemers.
The citizen-soldier is the guarantee against such a
misuse of power.

In order to establish an international system for preventing
wars, peace-loving peoples of the world are
demonstrating an eagerness to send their representatives
top such conferences as those at Dumbarton Oaks
and San Francisco with the fervent hope that they may
find a practical solution. Yet, until it is proved that
such a solution has been found to prevent wars, a rich
nation which lays down its arms as we have done after
every war in our history, will court disaster. The existence
of the complex and fearful instruments of
destruction now available make this a simple truth
which is, in my opinion, undebatable.

So far as their ability to defend themselves and their
institutions was concerned, the great democracies
were sick nations when Hitler openly massed his
forces to impose his will on the world. As sick as any
was the United States of America. We had no field
army. There were the bare skeletons of three and one-half
divisions scattered in small pieces over the entire
United States. It was impossible to train even these
few combat troops as divisions because motor transportation
and other facilities were lacking and funds
for adequate maneuvers were not appropriated. The
Air Forces consisted of a few partially equipped
squadrons serving continental United States, Panama,
Hawaii, and the Philippines; their planes were largely
obsolescent and could hardly have survived a single
day of modern aerial combat. We lacked modern arms
and equipment. When President Roosevelt proclaimed,
on 8 September 1939, that a limited emergency
existed for the United States we were, in terms
of available strength, not even a third-rate military
power. Some collegians had been informing the world
and evidently convincing the Japanese that the young
men of America would refuse to fight in defense of
their country.

The German armies swept over Europe at the very
moment we sought to avoid war by assuring ourselves
that there could be no war. The security of the United
States of America was saved by sea distances, by
Allies, and by the errors of a prepared enemy. For
probably the last time in the history of warfare those
may elect again to depend on others and the whim
and error of potential enemies, but if we do we will be
carrying the treasure and freedom of this great Nation
in a paper bag.

Returning from France after the last war, with
General Pershing, I participated in his endeavors to
persuade the Nation to establish and maintain a sound
defense policy. Had his recommendations been
accepted, they might have saved this country the hundreds
of billions of dollars and the more than a million
casualties it has cost us again to restore the peace. We
might even have been spared this present world
tragedy. General Pershing was asked against whom do
we prepare. Obviously that question could not be
answered specifically until nearly 20 years later when
Adolf Hitler led the replenished armies of defeated
Germany back into world conflict. Even as late as
1940 I was asked very much the same question before
a committee of Congress. Not even then could I say
definitely exactly where wee might have to fight, but I
did recall that in past wars the United States forces
had fought in Latin America, in France, in Belgium, in
Germany, in Russia, in Siberia, in Africa, in the
Philippines, and in China, but I did not anticipate that
in the near future American soldiers would fight in the
heat of Burma and in the islands of the vast Pacific,
and would be garrisoning areas across the entire land
and water masses of the earth. From this lesson there
is no alternative but that this Nation must be prepared
to defend its interest against any nation or combination
of nations which might sometime feel powerful
enough to attempt the settlement of political arguments
or gain resources or territory by force of arms.

Twice in recent history the factories and farms and
people of the United States have foiled aggressive
nations; conspirators against the peace would not give
us a third opportunity.

--209--

Between Germany and American in 1914 and again
in 1939 stood Great Britain and the USSR [Russia, before
the Revolution of 1917], France,
Poland [did not exist in 1914--resurrected by the
Treaty of Versailles], and the other countries of Europe. Because
the technique of destruction had not progressed to its
present peak, these nations had to be eliminated and
the Atlantic Ocean crossed by ships before our factories
could be brought within the range of the enemy
guns. At the close of the German war in Europe they
were just on the outer fringes of the range of fire from
an enemy in Europe. Goering stated after his capture
that it was a certainty the eastern American cities
would have been under rocket bombardment had
Germany remained undefeated for two more years.
The first attacks would have started much sooner. The
technique of war has brought the United States, its
homes and factories into the front line of world conflict.
They escaped destructive bombardment in the
second World War. They would not in a third.

It no longer appears practical to continue what we
once conceived as hemispheric defense as a satisfactory
basis for our security. We are now concerned
with the peace of the entire world. And the peace can
only be maintained by the strong.

What then must we do to remain strong and still not
bankrupt ourselves on military expenditures to maintain
a prohibitively expensive professional army even
if one could be recruited? President Washington
answered that question in recommendations to the
first Congress to convene under the United States
Constitution. He proposed a program for the peacetime
training of a citizen army. At that time the conception
of a large professional Regular Army was considered
dangerous to the liberties of the Nation. It is
still so today. But the determining factor in solving this
problem will inevitably be the relation between the
maintenance of military power and the cost in annual
appropriations. No system, even if actually adopted in
the near future, can survive the political pressure to
reduce the military budget if the costs are high--and
professional armies are very costly.

There is now another disadvantage to a large professional
standing army. Wars in the twentieth century
are fought with the total resources, economic, scientific,
and human of entire nations. Every specialized
field of human knowledge is employed. Modern war
requires the skills and knowledge of the individuals of
a nation.

Obviously we cannot all put on uniforms and stand
ready to repel invasion. The greatest energy in peacetime
of any successful nation must be devoted to productive
and gainful labor. But all Americans can, in the
next generations, prepare themselves to serve their
country in maintaining the peace or against the tragic
hour when peace is broken, if such a misfortune again
overtakes us. This is what is meant by Universal
Military Training. It is not universal military
service--the actual induction of men into the combatant
forces. Such would be composed during peacetime
of volunteers. The trainees would be in separate
organizations maintained for training purposes only.
Once trained, young men would be freed from further
connection with the Army unless they chose, as they
now may, to enroll in the National Guard or an organized
reserve unit, or to volunteer for service in the
small professional army. When the Nation is in jeopardy
they could be called, just as men are now called,
by a committee of local neighbors, in an order of priority
and under such conditions as directed at that
time by the Congress.

The concept of universal military training is not
founded, as some may believe on the principle of a
mass Army. The Army has been accused of rigidly
holding to this doctrine in the face of modern developments.
Nothing, I think, could be farther from the
fact, as the record of the mobilization for this war
demonstrates. Earlier in this report I explained how
we had allocated manpower to exploit American technology.
Out of our entire military mobilization of
14,000,000 men, the number of infantry troops was
less than 1,500,000 Army and Marine.

The remainder of our armed forces, sea, air, and
ground, was largely fighting a war of machinery.
Counting those engaged in war production there
were probably 75 to 80,000,000 Americans directly
involved in prosecution of the war. To technological
warfare we devoted 98 percent of our entire effort.

Nor is it proposed now to abandon this formula
which has been so amazingly successful. The harnessing
of the basic power of the universe will further
spur our efforts to use brain for brawn in safeguarding
the United States of America.

However, technology does not eliminate the need
for men in war. The Air Forces, which were the highest
developed technologically of any of our armed
forces in this war, required millions of men to do their
job. Every B-29 that winged over Japan was dependent
of the efforts of 12 officers and 73 men in the
immediate combat area alone.

The number of men that were involved in the
delivery of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was
tremendous. First we had to have the base in the
Marianas from which the plane took off. This first
required preliminary operations across the vast
Pacific, thousands of ships, millions of tons of supply,
the heroic efforts of hundreds of thousands of men.
Further, we needed the B-20's and their fighter
escort which gave us control of the air over Japan.
This was the result of thousands of hours of training
and preparation in the U.S., and the energies of hundreds
of thousands of men.

The effective technology on the military structure is
identical to its effect on the national economy. Just as
the automobile replaced the horse and made work for
millions of Americans, the atomic explosives will

--210--

require the services of millions of men if we are compelled
to employ them in fighting our battles.

This war has made it clear that the security of the
Nation, when challenged by an armed enemy, requires
the services of virtually all able-bodied male citizens
within the effective military age group.

In another national emergency, the existence of a
substantial portion of the Nation's young manpower
already trained or in process of training, would make
it possible to fill out immediately the peacetime ranks
of the Navy, the Regular Army, the National Guard,
and the Organized Reserve. As a result our Armed
Forces would be ready for almost immediate deployment
to counter initial hostile moves, ready to prevent
an enemy from gaining footholds from which he
could launch destructive attacks against our industries
and our homes. By this method we would establish,
for the generations to come, a national military policy;
(1) which is entirely within the financial capabilities
of our peacetime economy and is absolutely democratic
in its nature, and (2) which places the military
world and therefore the political world on notice that
this vast power, linked to our tremendous resources,
wealth, and production, is immediately available.
There can be no question that all the nations of the
world will respect our views accordingly, creating at
least a probability of peace on earth and of good will
among men rather than disaster upon disaster in a tormented
world where the very processes of civilization
itself are constantly threatened.

The decision in this matter is so grave in consequences
that it demands complete frankness on my
part. Therefore I must say that many of the objections
which have been made to Universal Military Training
appear to be influenced by ulterior motives, or to
ignore completely the tragedies of the past and present
which we are seeking to avoid for the future.
They often seem to give undue importance to restrictions
on our freedom of life, trivial in comparison
with the awful tragedies we are seeking to avoid and
the great blessings we hope to secure for succeeding generations.

The timing of our decision on the question of
Universal Military Training is urgent. The officials of
the State Department have been strongly of the
opinion that a decision in this matter prior to the
final peace negotiations would greatly strengthen
the hand of the United States in securing acceptance
of a genuine organization to handle international differences.

The terms of the final peace settlement will provide
a basis for determining the strength of the regular or
permanent postwar military forces of the United
States, air, ground, and naval, but they cannot, in my
opinion, alter the necessity for a system of Universal
Military Training.

The yardsticks by which the size of the permanent
force must be measured is maximum security with
minimum cost in men, matériel, and maintenance. So
far as they can foresee world conditions a decade from
now, War Department planners, who have taken
every conceivable factor into consideration, believe
that our position will be sound if we set up machinery
which will permit the mobilization of an Army of
4,000,000 men within a period of 1 year following any
international crisis resulting in a national emergency
for the United States.

The Regular Army must be comprised largely of a
strategic force, heavy in air power, partially deployed
in the Pacific and the Caribbean ready to protect the
Nation against a sudden hostile thrust and immediately
available for emergency action wherever required.
It is obvious that another war would start with a lightning
attack to take us unaware. The pace of the attack
would be at supersonic speeds of rocket weapons
closely followed by a striking force which would seek
to exploit the initial and critical advantage. We must
be sufficiently prepared against such a threat to hold
the enemy at a distance until we can rapidly mobilize
our strength. The Regular Army, and the National
Guard, must be prepared to meet such a crisis.

Another mission of the Regular Army is to provide
the security garrisons for the outlying bases. We
quickly lost the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Islands
at the beginning of this war and are still expending
lives and wealth in recovering them.

The third mission of the permanent Army is to furnish
the overhead, the higher headquarters which
must keep the machine and the plans up to date for
whatever national emergency we may face in the
future. This overhead includes the War Department,
the War College, the service schools, and the headquarters
of the military areas into which continental
United States is subdivided to facilitate decentralized
command and coordination of the peacetime military
machine. This was about all we had on the eve of this
war, planners and a small number of men who had little
to handle in practice but sound ideas on how to
employ the wartime hosts that would be gathered in
the storm. Had it not been for the time the British
Empire and the Soviets bought us, those plans and
ideas would have been of little use.

The fourth and probably the most important mission
of the Regular Army is to provide the knowledge,
the expert personnel, and the installations for training
the citizen-soldier upon whom, in my view, the future
peace of the world largely depends.

Of the citizen-Army, the National Guard is in the
first category of importance. It must be healthy and

--211--

strong, ready to take its place in the first line of
defense in the first weeks of an emergency, and not
dependent upon a year or more of training before it
can be conditioned to take the field against a trained
enemy. It is not feasible under the conditions of peace
for the National Guard within itself to provide the
basic, the fundamental training which is an imperative
requirement for its mission. Therefore, in my opinion,
based on a long and intimate experience with the
Guard form 1907 until 1941, the essential requirement
for such a system under modern conditions is
Universal Military Training from which to draw the
volunteers for the ranks of the Guard. Without such a
firm foundation, I am clearly of the opinion that a sufficiently
dependable force for our postwar needs cannot
be maintained.

The second important component of the Citizen
Army is the Organized Reserve through which full
mobilization of the Nation's resources to war footing
is accomplished. At the start of the present war, the
Reserve was almost entirely an officer corps, the regimental
and divisional groups lacking a practical basis
for mobilization. The contribution of this component
sas therefore largely one of individuals, but of wide
extent and great importance. The depleted officer
ranks of the Regular Army were filled by the Reserve,
the countless new staffs and organizations were mainly
composed of Reserve officers, the great training
camps for men inducted through the Selective Service
System drew in the beginning on the officer strength
of the Reserve Corps. The Officer candidate schools
from which our present Army acquired its vital small
unit leadership were staffed by Reserve officers.
These officers were largely veterans of World War I
and graduates of the Reserve Officers' Training
Corps. Pitifully small appropriations had limited
training to a brief period once in every 3 or 4 years
and so few numbers of troops that the limited training
the Reserve officers received had little relation to
actual battle.

This lack of troops with which Reserve officers
could acquire practical experience in command and
staff work was the most critical limitation. There was
no enlisted strength in the Reserve force. There was
little connection and understanding between the
Officers' Reserve Corps and the National Guard--which
had an enlisted strength--and the number of
enlisted men in the Regular Army was so small that it
was impossible to qualify Reserve officers by training
with Regulars. Especially in the dense centers of population
there were few Regulars troops. Yet here were
located the largest groups of Reserve officers. Even
had funds for transportation to the areas where
Regular troops were stationed been available, and
they were not, the few troops on the Regular roles
would have been completely submerged under a deluge
of Reserve officers. For example, the strength of
the Officer's Reserve Corps in 1938 was more than
double the number of Regular soldiers in combat units
in the continental United States.

Only by universal military training can full vigor
and life be instilled into the Reserve system. It creates
a pool of well-trained men and officers form which
the National Guard and the Organized Reserve can
draw volunteers; it provides opportunities for the
Guard and Reserve units to participate in corps and
Army maneuvers, which are vital preparations to success
in military campaigns. Without these trained
men and officers, without such opportunities to
develop skill through actual practice in realistic
maneuvers, neither the Regular Army, the National
Guard, nor the Reserve can hope to bring high efficiency
to their vital missions.

Though ROTC graduates composed 12 percent of
the war officers, its most important contribution was
the immediate availability of its product. Just what we
could have done in the first phases of our mobilization
and training without these men I do not know. It do
know that our plans would have had to be greatly curtailed
and the cessation of hostilities on the European
front would have had to be greatly curtailed
and the cessation of hostilities on the European
front would have been delayed accordingly. We must
enlarge and strengthen the system. It must be established
on a higher level, comp,arable to the academic
levels of college education in which the young men of
the ROTC are engaged. All this is made easily possible
if the student has participated in universal military
training, and at the same time the length of the course
can be shortened by 1 year. He would enter the ROTC
as far advanced as his predecessors were after 21/2 years
of the original 3-years' course. He would have completed
his elementary training--the military equivalent
of his grammar school and high school courses--and
would be prepared for college work, that is for
training as an officer, a prospective leader of men. The
product of such an ROTC would provide the National
Guard and the Organized Reserve with an officer
corps of exceptional character.

An unbroken period of 1 year's training appears
essential to the success of a sound security plan based
on the concept of a citizen army.

It is possible to train individual soldiers as replacements
for veteran divisions and air groups as we now
do in a comparatively short period of time. The training
of the unit itself cannot be accomplished at best in
less than a year, air units require even more time. The
principle is identical to that of coaching a football
team. A halfback can learn quickly how to run with
the ball, but it takes time and much practice and long
hours of team scrimmage before he is proficient at
carrying the ball through an opposing team, utilizing
the aid of the ten other men on the team. So it is with
an army division or combat air group. Men learn to
fire a rifle or machine gun quickly, but it takes long
hours of scrimmage, which the army calls maneuver,

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before the firing of the rifle is coordinated with the
activities of more than 14,000 other men on the team.

All men who might someday have to fight for their
Nation must have this team training. The seasoned soldiers
of our present superb divisions will have lived
beyond the age of military usefulness. The situation
will be similar in the peacetime army to that which
obtained when we began to mobilize for this war and
all men had to have at least a year of unit training
before we had divisions even fit for shipment overseas.

The training program would be according to the
standards which have made the American soldier in
this war the equal of the finest fighting men. It would
be kept abreast of technical developments and the
resulting modifications of tactics.

Throughout the training a strenuous program of
instruction would have to be followed, but it would
not be possible in peace to carry on the work under
the tremendous pressure we now follow in wartime.
Athletics, recreational opportunities, short weekends,
and other vacational opportunities such as at
Christmas time, would, of course, be necessary.
However, if the Government is to be justified in the
expenditure of the funds involved, a vigorous schedule
should be enforced; otherwise we would produce
a half-baked product which would fail to command
the respectful attention of the nations of the world,
and therefore negate the primary purpose of the
entire system.

To those who fear the Army might militarize our
young men and indoctrinate them with dangerous
conceptions, to those who express doubts of the
Army's capacity to do the job, I submit the evidence
of our present armies. The troops have been trained
sufficiently to defeat a first-class enemy. Their minds
have not been warped--quite the contrary. The
American people are satisfied, I am confident, that
their Armies are, in fact, armies of democracy. They
know that the men composing those Armies are far
better physically than they otherwise would have
been, that their general health has been better than at
home, except for those serving in the tropical jungles.
The officers who trained our Armies were largely
citizen-soldiers. They did have the initial guidance
of Regular officers, but only 2 percent of the entire
officer corps was professional. Only slightly more
were of the National Guard; 25 percent were products
of the Officers' Reserve Corps, 12 percent more
were men commissioned direct from civil life
because of certain professional qualifications. The
great majority of the officers came up from the ranks,
59 percent of the total, which guaranteed the democracy
of the Army.

To those who consider the introduction of a system
of universal military training an imposition on democracy,
I would reply that in my opinion it would be the
most democratic expression of our national life.
Whatever my limitations may be n judging this matter,
I submit the evidence of the proposal of our first President.

Washington's program provided for universal training
of all men arriving at the age of 17. The citizen-militia
was to be divided into three classes, men from
17 to 21, known as the advance corps, men 21 to 46,
known as the main corps, and men from 46 to 61,
known as the reserve corps. All of the peacetime training
would have been concentrated in the advance
corps, but eventually all members of main and reserve
corps would have been graduates of the training program.
The militia bill was first introduced in the Third
Session of the First Congress. It was considered in the
House on 5 March 1792, and as finally enacted contained
no element of any of Washington's recommendations.
It was so emasculated when finally adopted
that the representative who introduced the bill himself
voted against its passage.

It appears probable that had the bill been approved
by Congress, the United States might have avoided
much of the war making that has filled its brief history.
The impressment of American seamen would not
have been regarded as a harmless pastime in the early
1800's, nor would the Kaiser have been so easily
disposed to avenge the death of the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand in 194 with a world war, nor Adolf Hitler
have been quite so quick to break the peace, if over
these years the United States had been recognized by
the war mongers as a Nation immediately to be reckoned with.

The peacetime army must not only be prepared for
immediate mobilization of an effective war army, but
it must have in reserve the weapons needed for the
first months of the fighting and clear-cut plans for
immediately producing the tremendous additional
quantities of matériel necessary in total war. We must
never again face a great national crisis with ammunition
lacking to serve our guns, few guns to fire, and no
decisive procedures for procuring vital arms in sufficient quantities.

The necessity for continuous research into the military
ramifications of man's scientific advance is now
clear to all and it should not be too difficult to obtain
the necessary appropriations for this purpose during
peacetime. There is, however, always much reluctance
to expenditure of funds for improvement of
war-making instruments, particularly where there is
no peacetime usefulness in the product.

The development of combat airplanes is closely
allied with development of civil aeronautics; the prototypes
of many of our present transport planes and
those soon to come were originally bombers. Many of
the aeronautical principles that helped give this
Nation the greatest air force in the world grew out of
commercial development and our production know-how
at the start of this war was partially the fruit of

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peacetime commercial enterprise. Since many vital
types of weapons have no commercial counterpart,
the peacetime development of these weapons has
been grossly neglected. Antiaircraft weapons are a
good example. The highly efficient antiaircraft of
today did not materialize until long after the fighting
began. The consequent cost in time, life, and money
of this failure to spend the necessary sums on such
activity in peacetime has been appalling.

There is another phase of scientific research which
I think has been somewhat ignored--the development
of expeditious methods for the mass production
of war matériel. This is of great importance since it
determines how quickly we can mobilize our
resources if war comes and how large and costly our
reserve stocks of war matériel must be. Serious
thought and planning along this line can save millions
of tax dollars.

We can be certain that the next war, if there is one,
will be even more total than this one. The nature of
war is such that once it now begins it can end only as
this one is ending, in the destruction of the vanquished,
and it should be assumed that another
reconversion from peace to war production will take
place initially under enemy distant bombardment.
Industrial mobilization plans must be founded on
these assumptions and so organized that they will will
meet them and any other situation that may develop.
Yet they must in no way retard or inhibit the course
of peacetime production.

If this Nation is to remain great it must bear in mind
now and in the future that war is not the choice of
those who wish passionately for peace. It is the
choice of those who are willing to resort to violence
for political advantage. We can fortify ourselves
against disaster, I am convinced, by the measures I
have here outlined. In these protections we can face
the future with a reasonable hope for the best and
with quiet assurance that even though the worst may
come, we are prepared for it.

As President Washington said in his message to
Congress of 3 December 1973:

I cannot recommend to your notice measures for the fulfillment
of our duties to the rest of the world, without again pressing upon
you the necessity of placing ourselves in a position of complete
defense, and of exacting from them the fulfillment of the duties
towards us. The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion,
that contrary to the order of human efforts, they will forever keep
at a distance those painful appeals to arms, with which the history
of every other nation abounds. There is a rank due to the
United States among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely
lost, by the reputation of weakness--if we desire to avoid
insult we must be ready to repel it; if we desire to secure peace,
one of the most powerful institutions of our rising prosperity, it
must be known that we are at all times ready for war.